Beyond the Face of Fear
by kitsunelover
Summary: AU—They really shouldn’t have lost the Dark Tournament, because Kurama hates traveling through Makai as Karasu’s prisoner. At the same time, Hiei is the pesky thorn in Karasu’s side who just won’t die, and Bui knows a lot more than he lets on. COMPLETE.
1. With a Bang

_Beyond the Face of Fear_

Disclaimer: I neither own YYH nor profit from fanfiction.

Summary: AU—They really shouldn't have lost the Dark Tournament, because Kurama hates traveling through Makai as Karasu's prisoner. At the same time, Hiei is the pesky thorn in Karasu's side who just won't die, and Bui knows a lot more than he lets on.

A/N: This takes place in an AU, starting from Kurama's battle with Karasu. There is **shonen-ai**, which may or may not be one-sided. HieixKurama and KarasuxKurama are prominently featured.

Warnings: Potentially off-putting (though non-explicit) sexual content, language, and gore.

This is written lovingly as a gift fic for **Funara**.

--

Chapter 1: With a Bang

_Though from encircling bonds that held you fast  
your elusive form too readily slipped free,  
and though to my arms you are forever lost,  
you are a prisoner in my fantasy._

—Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, "Which Recounts How Fantasy Contents Itself With Honorable Love"

--

Kurama kneeled painfully in an awkward position, his arms thrown forward to support him. He dared not give in to his exhaustion and keel over, where he could lie on the stone floor and simply not think about anything, for then Juri would finish her count and he would lose.

Before him, Karasu jerked and coughed as the blood-sucking plant drained his veins. Juri had turned to him and started to count again.

The dull roar of the crowd and the meaningless congratulations that Yusuke and Kuwabara shouted at him mingled in Kurama's head, dazing him. His vision swam, and he could not keep track of Juri's count.

He did, however, know when she raised her arm as she declared "Ten!" He also saw Karasu stretch forth his tremulous hand and with a final burst of energy, yank the fanged tendrils from his chest. Several drops of blood sprayed out in an innocuous arc, as if they were pretending to be raindrops that had been lightly shaken off a lady's parasol.

Karasu's narrow avoidance of death had no effect on Juri and Koto, who simultaneously proclaimed Kurama's victory. Kurama, on the other hand, looked into those unbearable violet eyes and shuddered. Yusuke leapt into the ring and supported Kurama to the side, where he slid into a bloodied heap and thought no more.

Hiei was waiting for them with two frightened-looking paramedics, who immediately set to work binding Kurama's wounds. Yusuke caught a muttered, " . . .care of him," from Hiei, who was glowering down at the two fearful youkai. He looked at Hiei curiously, but the fire demon did not look back as he leapt lightly into the arena.

Kurama's deathlike countenance foremost in his mind's eye and staining his vision scarlet, Hiei approached Bui slowly. It was a wonder to him that the tiles beneath him did not bubble and melt at his footsteps, and that fountains of blood did not spurt from Bui's eyes when he met his gaze with a murderous glare: so great was his fury.

When Koto shouted, "Begin!" the brassy explosions of trumpeting fanfare was the accompaniment in Hiei's ears.

"I'm going to enjoy this," he said. His gritted teeth belied his words.

"He looks _furious_," Kuwabara muttered in an awed voice from the sidelines.

"You've always been good at grasping the obvious," Yusuke retorted.

His private musings, however, rendered him deaf to Kuwabara's outraged spluttering—Kuwabara had a point. Hiei usually entered battle with anticipation bordering on indecent glee, or with simple determination to finish the job. Rarely did he allow an emotion as disruptive as anger to affect his fighting. That wasn't to say, Yusuke reflected, that anger always made Hiei a worse fighter; but it usually increased the degree of pain and humiliation his opponents suffered.

Yusuke cast a glance at Kurama, who was being carried away on a stretcher. He turned to Kuwabara as Hiei and Bui began their nimble dance around each other, the prelude to battle.

"Stop me if I ever get mad at Kurama, because I don't want Hiei to have my balls for breakfast."

Kuwabara nodded fervently as Bui sank his axe into the spot where Hiei had stood seconds before, sending tremors through the earth. He and Yusuke both flinched when they heard Hiei's next words.

"Fight like you mean it," Hiei sneered. Bui lifted his axe again.

The two boys watching below braced themselves.

"If you want to die," Hiei spat, walking away from the fallen Bui, "kill yourself." At that point, Bui was already ashamed he had asked Hiei to end his life.

Hiei's rage had been spent, but it had actually diminished his precision during the fight. So despite his humiliation and his injuries, Bui was still conscious enough to feel (rather than see) Karasu's coolly appraising eyes upon him. As he lay there, he felt the weight of Karasu's pending disappointment was more than he could bear.

_No._

The word surged up his body in a powerful jolt, starting from his feet and flying up his spine as he jumped up towards Hiei. The force exploded at his fist to knock Hiei down on his face. By the sound of it, he had knocked several teeth out, and possibly broken Hiei's nose. Bui lumbered forward, prepared to do anything to keep Hiei down for the next ten seconds.

"Oh _my_!" Koto screamed into her microphone. "It seems that Contestant Bui, who was down for _nine_ seconds, got a second wind and has come from behind for an unexpected victory! What a twist! This match, like the one before, has given the audience the tension, _and_ the drama, _and_ the bloodshed it has been craving! Can I just say how _incredible_ this all is!"

She continued in that tiresome vein while Juri proceeded with the count. Bui would have rolled his eyes if he'd had the strength.

"Eight . . . nine . . . ten!"

The crowd went wild, but Bui paid them no mind. He turned towards Karasu, who was resting limply in Toguro's arms as healers attended to his chest wounds. His arms and legs dangled freely, though his reclined head rested snugly in the crook of Toguro's elbow. Somehow Bui knew that Karasu had told Toguro to hold him like that so that he'd be able to watch the match.

Through the fine veil of his hair, which had reverted to black, Karasu's eyes peered at Bui with contented approval. As Bui trudged back to his teammates, he let out a sigh. Only Karasu was able to identify it as an indication of relief and satisfaction instead of exhaustion, and he smiled.

"Well done," he whispered.

"Don't talk," Bui grunted. The effort it had cost Karasu to utter his brief congratulations had already caused fresh blood to stain the bandages wrapped tightly around his bare chest. The healers murmured indignantly and tipped some tonic down his throat. Karasu closed his eyes wearily, but the smile still played about his lips. Bui turned his face to the smile like a lizard basking in the sun. Karasu's unmasked smiles were rare.

Hiei's defeat (or Bui's triumph) set the pattern for the rest of the tournament. Kuwabara lost to Toguro Ani, and all of Yusuke's pigheadedness and righteous anger didn't help him, either.

"What now?" Yusuke managed to ask through his mouthful of blood, panting on his hands and knees.

At that moment, Kuwabara felt like he could have punched Yusuke for his transparent attempt at bravado. Apparently Toguro saw through Yusuke's ruse as well, for he gazed down at Yusuke with an obscenely amused expression.

"It's not over yet," he said.

Kuwabara watched despairingly as Yusuke's shoulders sagged at Toguro's words.

"It's over," Hiei said flatly.

Kuwabara wanted to punch him too.

--

The soft murmur of worried voices woke Kurama. Why couldn't they let him sleep? Groaning at the disturbance, he half-opened his eyes.

As soon as he did, Kuwabara was on him. "Kurama! How are you feeling?" He seemed unduly concerned.

"Fine," he mumbled, and he realized that he was telling the truth.

Shaking his head, he saw that he lay in the hospital wing. When he moved, however, sudden pains throbbed throughout his body. It seemed that the wounds Karasu had inflicted would not allow themselves to be healed easily. Yusuke, Hiei, and Kuwabara sat by him, all looking the worse for wear, but whole.

"What time is it? What happened?" he asked, sitting up.

"You've been here nearly seven hours," said Hiei, whose face had been repaired.

Kurama's eyes widened. "The tournament! Is it over?"

Hiei nodded. Yusuke would not meet his eyes.

Both of Kurama's hands turned clammy, and he clutched at the bedspread in sudden fear. "Tell me we didn't . . ."

No one said a word.

"We didn't – _lose_?"

Yusuke finally spoke. "I'm sorry, Kurama."

He stared at Yusuke, disbelieving his ears.

"Yusuke lost to Toguro, and of course you never expected a victory from him," said Hiei quietly, indicating Kuwabara.

"Speak for yourself," growled Kuwabara.

"You're the only one who won a match," said Yusuke, looking directly at Kurama.

"Then–," Kurama stammered, still trying to grasp the implications. "What's going to happen?"

"Toguro killed his older brother, so we don't have to worry about his wish. Long story." Yusuke smiled ironically, and he held up a tired hand to stop Kurama from asking. "And I doubt Bui will have anything more to do with us. He's free from Toguro now, and that's all he ever wanted."

"That leaves Toguro. And . . . Karasu." Kurama's stomach lurched.

"Right." Yusuke paused. "Toguro's wish is to offer me a second chance."

"_What_?"

"But there's a catch, of course," Hiei sneered.

"It's fucking rigged," Kuwabara growled.

"He wants to fight me again," Yusuke said, ignoring the other two. "If I win, he'll kill himself. If I lose, my entire team dies."

"But you're injured!" Kurama protested.

He let go of the bedspread as his hands curled into fists. Hiei and Kuwabara merely gave him "I told you so" looks. Yusuke appeared positively resigned to his fate.

"Koenma will take care of the girls. They'll get back to Ningenkai safely," he said in a colorless tone. Kurama wanted to shake him.

"Is that all you can say? Don't you _care?_" he demanded. "If Genkai were here—," he began. Invoking Genkai was a low blow, and he knew it.

"If Baa-san were here, she'd send me to him saying 'good riddance.'" Yusuke's eyes were unexpectedly bright. "I failed her. And all of you."

"You haven't told him the worst of it yet, Yusuke," Hiei said coldly.

Kuwabara fired up at this. "You little _bastard_," he said. "I don't know what your fucking problem is, but a rock has more sensitivity than you're showing right now!"

"We don't have much time left for sensitivity," Hiei retorted.

"Shut up, both of you," Yusuke said without feeling. He looked straight at Kurama. It was difficult to know how much courage it took to say his next words while meeting Kurama's eyes. "Karasu asked for you as his prize. You'll live even if I lose. I don't think he's going to kill you."

"Oh please no," Kurama said before he could stop himself. "No."

The prospect of being Karasu's prize for the rest of his life was too terrible to consider. It was the first time Kuwabara had ever looked at him with pity in his eyes. Yusuke looked away, and Kurama saw that the dams on his tears had finally broken. He turned to Hiei, feeling like a drowning man grasping for a life preserver.

In a rare display of support, Hiei reached forward and squeezed his hand. Kurama was stunned. Hiei never submitted to touch from others, let alone initiated it.

"Karasu doesn't know what a dangerous wish he's made," Hiei said.

Were his words a promise? Kurama searched his face wonderingly and realized that all hope was not lost. He smiled painfully at Hiei, but it was a smile nonetheless, and Hiei tucked it carefully into a steel-plated compartment of his heart.

A nurse came by and shooed them away from Kurama's side, saying, "Visiting hours are over for today."

"Bye, Kurama," Yusuke said, offering his hand to Kurama.

"Kick Toguro's ass," Kurama said, making Yusuke laugh a little at his uncharacteristic use of profanity.

"Kurama," grunted Kuwabara, shaking his hand as well. "If you see Yukina . . ."

"I'll tell her you were thinking of her," Kurama said quickly. To his credit, Hiei didn't say anything. Kuwabara smiled weakly.

"Thanks." He turned to follow Yusuke, who had already started out the door.

Kurama's heart didn't break as he realized he'd probably never see them again, but it palpitated dangerously. Hiei was the last to leave.

"Hiei," Kurama said desperately, wanting to cling to him.

"Do you trust me?" Hiei asked impassively.

"Well . . . yes," Kurama said, taken aback.

"Then don't do anything stupid while you're in his clutches, and remember that the feeling is mutual."

Kurama blinked as he watched Hiei walk away. The Jaganshi was full of surprises today.

The nurse who had driven his teammates away then asked whether he'd like a sleeping pill.

"Yes," Kurama said instantly, too exhausted physically and emotionally to relish the prospect of agonizing in bed the whole night. He wanted several well-deserved hours of sweet oblivion.

She gave it to him with a glass of water, which he swallowed quickly. He closed his eyes and thought no more.

--

When he wakened, he was lying on a bed in an unfamiliar hotel room. He started to sweat as his suspicions raised their noses and sniffed the wind. A voice from the doorway confirmed his fears.

"You've woken in time for dinner."

Kurama wished he could blind his eyes to the hateful sight of Karasu smiling at him. The crow youkai was apparently on the road to recovery.

"But you've just missed your friends' execution."

Yusuke . . . and Kuwabara . . . and _Hiei._

"_Karasu doesn't know what a dangerous wish he's made."_

"_Do you trust me?"_

Hiei.

A brief wave of nausea swept over Kurama. When he had successfully contained his urge to retch, he blinked at the strange prickling feeling in his eyes. The last time he had wept was when he'd thought Shiori was about to die.

"No dinner for you, then," Karasu said, watching Kurama closely. He left, locking the door behind him.

If Kurama hadn't been choked with his hatred and fury, he might have noticed that Karasu had effectively left him alone to mourn in private, which, under other circumstances, would normally be considered decent and sensitive.

He was left alone with his grief in the darkness, but he was unable to give vent to it satisfactorily. For one thing, it would have meant an irrevocable acceptance of what had happened. For another, grieving was far too passive. He'd much rather get even—scratch that, he wanted revenge in excess. But he didn't have the strength to think about that now.

Instead, Kurama dissociated himself from the circumstances by shutting down completely.

It had been a long day.

--

A/N: I hope to update this weekly, but more importantly—**Funara**, I hope you liked this. Happy birthday, dear!


	2. Hollow Men

2. Hollow Men

--

A couple of hours later, Karasu entered the room again. This time, he turned on the lamp next to the bed. Kurama, who had been dozing uneasily, jerked awake. His face felt strange when he grimaced at the intrusion; he realized it was because of the stiff tracks of dried tears on his cheeks. Apparently he hadn't been completely able to stave off his anguish.

"Have a drink," Karasu said, pushing a cup of sake into Kurama's hands and sitting at his bedside. "I want to talk with you."

Kurama shuddered at Karasu's close proximity, and the sake slopped over the sides of the cup as his hands trembled.

He hated and feared Karasu, but above all, he hated that he feared Karasu. What was it about the crow youkai?

Kurama had tried looking rationally at the situation. Certainly, Karasu was a powerful demon who had focused his twisted affections on Kurama, but Kurama was no stranger to either daunting opponents or unwelcome sexual advances.

It would not be inaccurate, however, to guess that Karasu's understated elegance had fascinated Kurama at first sight—even almost as much as his pleasure in others' pain had.

Sadism wasn't an uncommon trait in youkai, but it was rare to see a demon practicing it with such grace and flair. Karasu's poise and appearance had struck a deep chord within Kurama's sixteen year-old, easily flustered human body. And then, he had been drawn to Karasu's sadism, as he recognized much of his former self in it.

The blood rose to his cheeks now out of fury and hatred, but Karasu would have been delighted to know that he had caused those roses to bloom before, for very different reasons.

But Kurama would _never_ have admitted any of this.

"Relax," Karasu said calmly, observing his flushed countenance. "I just want to talk . . . for now." His eyes gleamed momentarily. "Don't you want to know what I have in mind for you?"

"Not particularly," Kurama shot back.

Ignoring this, Karasu continued, "Tomorrow we will be leaving the island. Bui and I are no longer bound to Toguro, and we will be traveling together. I expect you to cooperate, or I shall be forced to take disciplinary measures. Which," he added after a thoughtful pause, "I'd enjoy greatly, but would probably not be conducive to your health."

"Didn't you want to kill me to preserve me as I am now?" Kurama asked, his voice shaking.

Karasu regarded him coolly. "I respect your victory over me. That was . . . unexpected. And now that the tournament is over, do you know—my bloodlust has lessened considerably."

The corners of his eyes crinkled in a manner that told Kurama he must be smiling. "At any rate, your human body is young yet. I believe I can safely keep you for a number of years."

"You'll slip," Kurama promised him, his voice now low with suppressed rage. "You can't expect my 'cooperation' to last successfully for years."

"Oh dear," said Karasu, his eyes sparkling with mirth. "In several weeks, your willingness will no longer be an integral factor in your cooperation. You needn't worry about that."

Of course, at these words, Kurama's stomach churned with apprehension. What did Karasu mean? He decided that perhaps alcohol would do him some good after all, and he knocked the sake back.

"And now," said Karasu, reaching out his hand to Kurama, "we're done talking."

Momentarily paralyzed, Kurama watched Karasu's hand wrap around his with a sort of detached horror. He was painfully reminded of another dark youkai who had held his hand today, but the hand now around his was long-fingered, with fine bones like a bird's. It looked girlish and delicate, and Kurama was struck with a powerful urge to seize and crush it, but he knew that it was not as fragile as it appeared.

He should know—he'd stabbed a thorny rose through that palm, and there wasn't even a scar on the back of the hand now.

All of this passed over Kurama in a flash; Karasu had only reached forward to take his empty cup and set it down on the dresser next to the bed. But his next action was a valid cause of distress to Kurama—he removed his mask.

Kurama's eyes widened in alarm. His consternation was compounded when Karasu leaned over and kissed him deeply, his hands moving to Kurama's shirtfront. When Kurama brought up his arms to fight back feebly, Karasu bit his lower lip hard and pulled away.

"Kissing and biting are two of the most important things I take my mask off for," he breathed, now laving his way up Kurama's tensed neck.

When he reached Kurama's chin, he raised his head to kiss Kurama again, moving to straddle him at the same time. As he probed Kurama's mouth, he ground his hips against him pointedly. Kurama nearly screamed into Karasu's mouth.

When Karasu drew back for breath, Kurama glared at him and spat, "What now, rape?"

Karasu smiled. Kurama could actually see his lips curve upwards, now that he was unmasked. "Like I said, I value cooperation. I think I'll wait until your cooperation no longer depends on your will before . . . going all the way. But it _is_ hard for me to restrain myself with you."

This display of self-control was unnatural for a sadist of Karasu's caliber, but Kurama hadn't the presence of mind to think about it.

Karasu kissed him deeply again, and then, laughing, rolled off of his waist to lie beside him on the bed. He reached out an arm to turn off the light, and then wrapped it possessively around Kurama's waist, murmuring, "This is just my way of saying goodnight to you for now. Get some sleep."

Kurama wasn't sure whether Karasu honestly expected him to get any; he was quivering in rage. His muscles were painfully tightened and would not relax, and he could not conceive of relaxing in Karasu's embrace. But he was relieved when Karasu's breathing slowly deepened into the rhythm of sleep. The wheels of his mind immediately began to turn.

_Karasu's probably a light sleeper,_ he thought, _and I still can't use my youki yet, but I won't be able to forgive myself if I don't even try to escape._

He waited a few more minutes, and the pattern of Karasu's breathing did not pause or quicken. So he held his breath as he closed a hand around Karasu's arm and began lifting it from around his waist. Karasu shifted uneasily but did not wake. A second bout of relief flooded Kurama, and he got out of bed carefully.

He crept out of the room and successfully groped his way in the dark over to the front door, aided by faint moonlight that streamed from the windows. Once he had undone the lock on the door, he opened it with infinite care. The door was very heavy, however, and it creaked loudly in the same slow way that he was opening it.

Losing his head for a minute, Kurama swung the door open in one quick motion, which did stop the creaking, but also resulted in a loud banging sound, which was followed by snorting. It sounded as though he had hit someone sleeping in front of the door . . . _someone wearing armor_.

The noise must have been loud enough to wake Karasu, Kurama thought hopelessly. He swore inwardly, as Bui rose to his feet and silently escorted Kurama back inside, where Karasu was waiting for them. He was leaning against the doorframe of the bedroom and smirking.

"I didn't expect less of you, Kurama." He smiled before stifling a yawn. "But now, come to bed. If you try to escape again, I need not say I will be very displeased."

Kurama pushed past him roughly into the room, trying to hide the dismay written plainly on his face.

"Thank you, Bui," Karasu said.

Bui muttered an indistinct response that Kurama did not catch.

Karasu laughed, saying, "Yes, I know. I will write Nekura in the morning."

Bui grunted and turned around. Karasu joined Kurama in bed, and tucked a proprietary arm around his waist again. Kurama, suffocating under Karasu's feather-light embrace, wondered what Bui had said, and who Nekura was.

But his musings ended vaguely. The excitement of this failed attempt had weakened him further and he drifted into an uncomfortable sleep plagued with nightmares of his comrades' deaths.

The next morning, Kurama didn't wake feeling wholly rested, but he had certainly regained a great deal of his strength. He toyed with the notion of attempting escape again, but decided reluctantly that he wasn't capable of taking on both Karasu and Bui.

He contented himself with the thought that a better opportunity might present itself when they left the hotel to board the ship that would take them back.

Kurama exited the bedroom to find Karasu standing at the open front door and giving an envelope to a messenger.

"I want you to deliver this as quickly as you can," he was saying, "to Nekura of Mokuzai. Are you familiar with this name?"

The messenger, a blue-scaled youkai with gray-veined wings, nodded once. His eyebrows had jumped slightly at the mention of Nekrura's name, and Kurama thought he now looked rather suspicious of Karasu. But Karasu knew how to remedy such misgivings.

He held out a pouch of gold so heavy that the bottom looked as if it were about to drop out. "I have given Nekura instructions to give you another purse like this if you deliver my letter within a week."

The messenger's eyebrows shot up again, this time with delight, as he seized the money with a clawed hand and pocketed it.

"Sir, you are too generous," he muttered in an oily voice, making several low bows.

Karasu placed his fingers under the other's chin and tipped his face up gently, going so far that in order to follow Karasu's lead, the messenger was forced to straighten out of the bow. The gesture was fluid and elegant, which made it all the more menacing.

A certain economy of movement contributed greatly to Karasu's grace; he did not waste his energy in pointless arm-flailing or nodding, so his every motion was like a bold stroke of black ink across white paper. Each gesture served to punctuate and underline his words and ideas, giving him something of a dancer's carriage.

It was this, Kurama reflected, that made him so intimidating and repulsive. He personally would have found it harder to hate Karasu if he had been a blundering drunk like Chuu.

When the messenger was finally standing erect, Karasu (who was still taller) removed his fingers and looked down at him, saying quietly, "Don't fail me in this. I will have the entire Shikaku on you if you decide to run off with the money."

This new name meant nothing to Kurama, but the messenger was visibly unnerved.

"Of course not, sir!" he exclaimed, dropping into another hasty bow.

Karasu made a quiet sound of disgust and waved him away. Wisely, the blue youkai darted off, clutching Karasu's message tightly to his chest like a mother with her newborn.

Karasu turned around and saw Kurama standing there. Smiling, he said, "I suppose you are wondering who Nekura is, and who the Shikaku are."

Whoever they were, they probably didn't mean anything good for him, Kurama decided. He glared at Karasu.

"Not really."

"You'll find out in due time," Karasu replied, apparently amused by some private joke. "Now, you must eat quickly. Bui is already down at the docks securing our passage home."

He motioned Kurama towards the dining table, where breakfast was laid out. Then he disappeared into the bedroom, smiling as he said, "I have some other last minute things to attend to."

Kurama sat stiffly at the table. As he lowered his fork to the food, a sudden flash of understanding burst upon him. Karasu hadn't wanted to—well, _fuck_ him until he was made into a willing participant. After his abortive effort to get away, which had obviously marked him as unwilling, Bui had mentioned Nekura. If a flying messenger would only be able to reach Nekura in a week under the best conditions, then their party of three would probably take several weeks to reach him. And what was it that Karasu had said?

_In several weeks, your willingness will no longer be an integral factor in your cooperation._

His fork fell to the table with a clatter. A leaden weight dropped into his stomach, and by the feel of it, had ruptured several vital organs on the way.

_Shit._

He still didn't know who Nekura was, but he did know that Karasu fully expected him to deprive Kurama of his free will. And that meant that Nekura was nothing but bad news.

By the time Karasu re-emerged from the bedroom, Kurama had worked out several possibilities. Nekura was either in possession of a special artifact like the Sword of Vengeance Hiei had stolen, or a Jagan with psychic powers (again, like Hiei), or he had some very rare drugs. All of those items could be used to deprive a person of their consciousness and free will.

Judging by the fact that Karasu wanted Nekura to be informed long before they reached him, Nekura needed time to prepare what Karasu wanted. This made the drugs the most likely answer. Kurama knew there were very dangerous and potent substances, and that they were most often used in slave trafficking. He closed his eyes as his stomach threatened to reject what little content it held at the moment.

Of course. Karasu wanted him as a sex slave, didn't he? Kurama had had some experience with those kinds of drugs when he'd been a thief; he remembered that they were notoriously difficult to make, and they did not keep for very long. That explained Karasu's need for the speedy delivery of his message. He wanted the drugs to be ready as soon as they arrived.

"All right," Kurama muttered aloud, trying to calm himself. _I can think my way out of this. I wasn't the most infamous thief in Makai for nothing._

"All right?" repeated another voice. Karasu had come into the dining room. "Are you done eating?"

"Yes," Kurama lied. He didn't feel like he would be able to stomach anything at the moment.

"Excellent," Karasu said. "We should leave, then; Bui is waiting for us with all of our things. I sent him to collect your personal effects."

Opening his mouth, Kurama boiled with shame when he had to try twice before managing to say, "What about my teammates' things?"

Karasu frowned. "I expect they've been disposed of."

His eyes slanted upwards in a smile at the expression on Kurama's face. "Did you want keepsakes? To remember them by?"

His mocking tone made Kurama want to reach out and pop his head like a melon.

"Shut up," he hissed.

"We certainly can't keep Bui waiting," Karasu agreed. "Come." He led the way out of the suite.

As they descended in the elevator, Karasu said, "I realize that despite my warning to you last night, you're probably looking for more avenues of escape."

Kurama shot him a dirty look.

"I considered putting you on a leash," he smirked, extending his hand to caress Kurama's neck. "You'd look good in a collar."

Kurama hissed as he sprang from Karasu's touch.

"But I decided that I'll simply blow your leg away if you run. I will be keeping a very close eye on you."

They passed the rest of the way in silence, though many youkai laughed and pointed when they saw them walking together. If shame was a poison that built up in the body, like gallstones or cholesterol, Kurama was certain that he'd have been on his knees throwing up for all he was worth the minute he'd set foot outside.

Once they reached the harbor, they did find Bui waiting for them in front of a ship with three suitcases which were so dwarfed by his girth that next to him, they looked like lunchboxes.

"Bui," Karasu greeted him. "When do we set sail?"

"In half an hour," Bui answered.

"Good. Since we have that time," he said, turning to Kurama, "why don't you go and say goodbye to your women? Or rather, your comrades' women, as I don't believe _you_ brought any girlfriends or sisters along. Or mothers," he added pensively.

_Which was obviously the right choice_, Kurama thought, dreading how Shiori would react when he never came back. He turned heavily in the direction Karasu had pointed, seeing the women who had accompanied them gathering around another ship.

Fleetingly, he wondered why Karasu had even pointed them out to him. It could almost be considered kind. _Or_, he thought savagely, _he wants to savor my misery when I have to face them._

At any rate, he hurried towards them, still feeling sick with humiliation Yukina caught sight of him first and cried, "Kurama-san!"

The others all turned towards him with surprise that soon turned to joy, as they took turns embracing him tightly. They had all been crying, Kurama noted painfully. Atsuko's breath smelled strongly of alcohol, Shizuru's face was red and puffy, Keiko's eyes were wet that very moment, and Yukina's eyelashes glittered strangely. All of them had lost a relative or a lover. But . . . someone was missing.

"Where's Botan?"

"She disappeared yesterday," Shizuru said sadly. "Maybe she ferried them over to Reikai."

Keiko and Atsuko both burst into fresh tears at "them."

"Kurama . . . you're the only one . . . still . . ." Keiko choked, squeezing his hand.

Heat rose to his face. Survivor's guilt.

"There's no honor in living as I am," he said in a hard voice. "I would rather—"

"Don't say that," Yukina interrupted softly. "They would have wanted you to live. You still have hope."

"Yukina," Kurama said uncertainly. He withdrew his hand from Keiko's grasp and clasped Yukina's hand in both of his own. "Kuwabara wanted me to tell you . . . he was thinking of you. Until the end."

She averted her gaze as if in pain. It hurt him as well, but he had more to say to her.

"And," he went on, knowing that Hiei had not told him to say anything, but going with his gut instinct, "Hiei—"

"Don't, please," she said, her voice cracking. Something told Kurama she already knew. She put a tiny silk bag on a string into his hand. When he looked at her curiously, she elaborated.

"My tear gems. There are three. I shed one each for you, Kuwabara, and Yusuke. I am keeping the one—Hiei's," she said thickly. "But please take the others. I don't want to waste them."

As Kurama started to protest, she said, "Please take them. You might need them where you're going."

This silenced his objections. She was right.

"Thank you," he muttered, placing the string around his neck and tucking the bag into his clothes.

Suddenly, Shizuru quipped, "I don't suppose Kazu said anything about giving his regards to me?"

"No," began Kurama awkwardly, but Shizuru started laughing and crying at the same time.

"That's my brother," she hiccupped. "Stupid . . . idiot . . ."

Keiko gave her a hug. Atsuko was still sobbing in the background. Kurama shifted uneasily. At a distance, he could see Karasu raise a hand languidly to beckon him.

"I have to go now," he said with great difficulty.

"Kurama!" Keiko let go of Shizuru to crush him in a hug, and the other girls followed suit.

"Take care of yourself," Shizuru said earnestly.

"You, too," he returned.

"Goodbye, Kurama," Yukina said softly.

Waving wordlessly at them, Kurama left and walked back towards Karasu and Bui.

"All aboard, then," said Karasu, his violet eyes sparkling in the sun.

Kurama turned his head for one final look at the girls before following Karasu and Bui up the gangplank.

"We'll never see him again, will we?" sniffed Keiko.

"We might still," whispered Yukina, taking her arm. "We might."

Somewhere on the other side of the island, a fire demon picked himself up, blinked, grimaced, and uttered a single word.

"Fuck."

--

A/N: A vaguely depressing, transitional chapter. I promise the story picks up later.


	3. Falls the Shadow

3. Falls the Shadow

--

After Yusuke, Kuwabara, and Hiei had been forced from Kurama's side in the hospital the previous night, they'd walked into the reception room.

"Hey . . . where is everyone?"

Yusuke looked around in confusion. All the nurses and receptionists that had been flitting around the room when they had entered were gone.

Hiei's face registered shocked realization.

"Get out of here now!" he shouted, darting towards the doors. "And don't breathe the air!"

Completely bewildered and terrified, Yusuke and Kuwabara followed his instructions blindly. They ran for the doors that Hiei had already burst out of, but they weren't half as fast as he was, and they began staggering a little after the halfway mark towards the exit. The reception room was very long.

"Damn it," cursed Hiei, whose knees were also sagging.

Though his preternatural senses had detected the danger and his tremendous speed had gotten him out of the room, he had already taken two or three breaths before he had understood the situation. In this case, two or three breaths were all that had been needed.

The last thing he saw before he slumped over were Yusuke and Kuwabara's prone bodies stretched out on the floor.

--

He was roused by a stinging slap to the side of his face.

"Up," a voice growled. "Get up and watch your friend fight for your filthy little lives."

Hiei instantly jerked upright, though it was rather difficult as his arms and legs were bound tightly.

"Did your mother take it up the ass and shit you out several months later?" he sneered, taking in the leering, misshapen youkai in front of him.

"Enjoy the use of that smart mouth while you can, pal," the other retorted, moving on to slap Kuwabara awake.

They were in a small room, bare except for a large screen in front of them, and the sofa on which they were lying. Hiei discreetly tested his restraints, but the ugly youkai saw him.

Over Kuwabara's nonplussed grunts, he said, "Those are special steel cables Toguro-san checked himself. Even if you managed to fray them, you wouldn't be able to snap 'em before your friend loses and _dooms_ you." He nodded to the screen.

The screen showed a brightly lit indoor arena, where Yusuke and Toguro Otouto were standing across from each other.

"See you later," said the youkai, leaving through a steel door. "Or maybe not," he added gleefully, slamming the door shut.

"They knocked us out with gas back there," Kuwabara growled, wriggling upright. He was having considerably more trouble than Hiei had.

"Astute observation," Hiei snapped. "And it'll likely be the method by which they kill us when Yusuke loses." He jerked his head upwards. "There are vents in the ceiling."

"What do you mean, 'when'?" Kuwabara demanded. "Say 'if,' will you? Stop being so goddamn pessimistic!"

"In this situation, it's only the realistic assessment," Hiei said in a hard voice. "Yusuke's already weak. And he's under a lot of pressure right now. But there is—"

"Shh!" Kuwabara said excitedly; Hiei stopped mid-sentence. Yusuke and Toguro had just rushed at each other, Yusuke yelling like a madman. The fight had begun.

Toguro, who was powered up to about eighty percent, grabbed Yusuke around the legs and picked him up. After swinging him around in the air a few times for the hell of it, he slammed the boy's body into the ground. Hiei's eye twitched as he remembered how Bui had knocked him down in much the same way, breaking his nose and several of his teeth.

"Get up!" Kuwabara bawled.

Yusuke didn't disappoint. He raised himself surprisingly quickly and aimed a Spirit Gun at Toguro, but it practically bounced off his skin.

"What was it one of your teammates said earlier? 'Fight like you mean it.' Come on, Yusuke." Toguro grinned.

"Bastard," Hiei muttered. _How dare he throw my words back at him!_

"I—want—you—to—die!" Yusuke roared, charging at Toguro with glowing fists.

Toguro parried each one of his blows easily, and retaliated with a powerful punch that sent Yusuke flying into the wall.

"Yusuke!" Kuwabara's face was contorted in pain. Hiei feared his own features greatly resembled Kuwabara's. He certainly shared the other's trepidation.

The rest of the fight continued in the same manner. Toguro laughed at Yusuke's pitiful attempts, and dealt him agonizing blows. To his credit, Yusuke never stopped to catch his breath, but simply kept attacking Toguro.

"I'm beginning to wonder if your heart is really in this," Toguro scoffed. "I guess you just don't care about your friends. In which case . . ."

He picked up Yusuke's broken body, undeterred by the boy's feeble struggles. Turning Yusuke over on his stomach, and balancing him on his own bulging thigh, Toguro lifted up the back of Yusuke's shirt.

"Between the small knobs on top of the human pelvis," he said, looking directly at the camera, "is the iliac spine."

His fingers moved to the approximate location on Yusuke's back, as he paid no heed to his writhing and animalistic cries of wrath and fear.

"Goodbye, Yusuke Urameshi."

Toguro brought his knee up, and keeping his fingers on the same spot, placed his elbows on either end of Yusuke's body and pushed them down. Yusuke snapped in half, and the camera zoomed in to show the broken ends of Yusuke's backbone poking out of the place where Toguro's fingers had been.

"_NOOOOO!_"

Hiei was sure that Kuwabara's unearthly howl would haunt him for years to come. Even he had to look away from the gruesome image.

"Bastard," he said again, straining furiously at his bindings. "_Bastard."_

He thought he felt several strands of the steel cables give way, but then a faint hissing noise reached his ears. Gas was flowing through the vents.

"Kuwabara," he said urgently, "don't breathe. Close your mouth. Hold your breath for as long as you can."

But Kuwabara was oblivious. Tears streaked down his cheeks as he wailed and raged.

Closing his eyes with reluctance, Hiei relaxed all of his muscles, sat perfectly still, and prepared to hold his breath until he lost consciousness. It hurt him more than he'd ever thought it would to leave Kuwabara in the way of imminent death, but he told himself halfheartedly that Kuwabara was in such a state that he was beyond saving, and he could not waste his own energy in futile endeavors to save the human boy.

_No,_ he thought fiercely, _I need to conserve all my resources to rescue the only person I can now. Kurama needs me._

And maybe—just maybe—later, he and Kurama could go and wreak vengeance on the one who had inflicted so much misery on them and started it all by inviting them to this wretched tournament.

--

When Hiei woke up, the first thing he noticed was the smell. An unbearable stench of rotting food, sanitary waste, and a host of other things he didn't care to identify assaulted his nose. The next thing he noticed was the texture. He was lying atop a slimy, soggy mound of garbage.

A wave of nausea rolled over him, and he gagged and retched for several minutes before pulling himself together.

He was thankful that at least, he wasn't lying face down.

It was dark, and from the concentrated odor of the refuse, Hiei guessed that he was inside an enclosed compartment . . . an incinerator! Alarm surged within him, as he struggled to break his ropes. He didn't know when the incinerator would be turned on, and being a fire demon, it would take a while before he would sustain any damage from the heat; but if it were long enough, he would definitely suffer.

As he thrashed around in his efforts to snap the cables, he encountered something heavy and rather like a body.

"Kuwabara," he said loudly. "Are you alive?"

No response.

"Hn. I expected as much," Hiei said angrily. "You useless lump."

But none of the fury welling up inside him was directed at Kuwabara at all.

"_Damn_ it!" he yelled, his face actually growing hot with rage. Sweat trickled down his forehead. It was very warm in there.

Suddenly, Hiei was hit by a realization. He was in an incinerator, which burnt things. But some things didn't burn. Some things melted. _Like steel_.

Hiei summoned black fire to his fists and almost immediately felt the cables on his wrists loosen slightly. After they came off, he held his fiery fists against the bindings on his legs. But it was slow work; it took half an hour for everything to come off.

_Why didn't I think of this before?_ He berated himself mentally. Hiei disregarded the fact that even if he'd thought of it back then, he wouldn't have had enough time to free even himself, let alone Kuwabara. _Idiot! I could have saved Kuwabara!_

It wasn't just, it wasn't right that the oaf should be causing Hiei so much misery, even in death. He wanted to howl like Kuwabara had, but promised himself that he'd make it up to that lout's memory; and to Yukina, who Hiei suspected (to his chagrin) had returned his romantic feelings.

Keeping his hands ignited, he darted on top of the stinking compost lightly, searching for a wall. When he hit one, he traced a large rectangle with his fists. A rectangular sheet of metal fell out and he was rewarded with sunlight and fresh air. From the sound of chirping birds, Hiei deduced that it was early morning, which meant that he'd spent the entire night in that putrid incinerator. It was a wonder that the stink hadn't finished him off.

He stepped out gratefully and brushed himself off as best he could, though he knew that his clothes would never be fit to wear again, and that lesser youkai would faint at the stench he was currently radiating.

His surroundings were vaguely familiar. The incinerator was apparently behind a large building which, judging by its smokestacks, was the kitchen for the hotel. Hiei knew that the ships were leaving this morning, so his first priority was to get on one that would be going in the same direction as the one Karasu and Kurama had boarded.

Once he took his first step away from the incinerator, however, he realized that he had another matter to attend to.

"Fuck," he muttered to himself.

He held his breath and darted back into the incinerator, clumsily threw Kuwabara's body over his shoulder, and dashed back out, where he laid the body on the ground. Despite their past . . . disagreements, Hiei knew that he couldn't leave his former teammate to rot on top of a heap of trash. He only regretted that he couldn't do the same for Yusuke's body, which had not been in the incinerator with them.

Knowing it was stupid, he checked Kuwabara for a pulse anyway. Nothing. He took a deep breath. Well, it had been worth confirming.

"Damn you," Hiei muttered, glaring at Kuwabara's half-opened eyes. He reached over to lower the eyelids. "I don't know what Yukina saw in you. But," he allowed, in case they were watching him in Reikai, "you probably would have done well by her. Hn. You'd have known, though, if you hadn't, I would have killed you."

He exhaled exasperatedly. "All right. Rest in peace." Then for good measure, as though afraid he was getting soft: "Idiot."

For the second time, his hands held fire. He knelt and placed them on Kuwabara's feet. The flames caught and spread, reducing the body to cinders in minutes.

Hiei clenched his jaw and stared at the ashes a moment, then whirled towards the harbor.

--

Around the ships, he stayed in his too-fast-for-the-eye-to-follow mode, zipping amongst and through people so swiftly that one would only have been able to see him if one were expecting him. After all, it wouldn't do for someone to recognize him. He was supposed to be dead.

With a sudden jolt, he saw Yukina and the other girls standing in front of a boat. Hiei didn't know, but Kurama had left them only minutes ago. He debated the merits of approaching them, still flurrying about to remain invisible, when he saw Yukina discreetly detach herself from the group and walk towards him, eyes wide with disbelief. Amazed that she could see him, he led the way to a secluded area behind a small hill of crates.

When she was completely hidden to all passersby, he stopped moving, revealing himself.

"Hiei-san!" she exclaimed, putting a hand on his shoulder to reassure herself that he was real.

"Yukina. Uh." He stepped away from her at almost the exact instant she withdrew her hand. This was not the way he had envisaged his resurrection in front of her.

"Why are you so filthy?" she asked, laughing even as she wiped her hand on a handkerchief. Hiei felt like he could breathe easily again. Apparently her happiness at seeing him outweighed the disgust he knew his appearance and odor must inspire.

"It's a long story. How are you?" he asked, quickly becoming serious.

Yukina's joyful demeanor softened. "I'm fine. Shizuru is also doing well, though Keiko and Atsuko are having trouble with their grief. But what about you? And," her voice dropped to a hopeful whisper, "are Yusuke and Kuwabara alive too?"

"No," Hiei said brusquely, instantly regretting his tone when he saw Yukina's face fall. "But Kurama is still alive," he managed to say in a slightly kinder voice. "I'm going after him."

To his surprise, Yukina's face lit up. "I saw Kurama," she told him excitedly. "He boarded the third ship on the right from ours. It's already left, though."

"What!" Hiei's eyes widened. "Did you talk to him?"

Yukina nodded. "A little. He told me Kazuma was thinking about me until the end." She sounded as though she had a bad head cold.

Deciding it was the right thing to do, Hiei said gruffly, "I found his body afterwards and cremated it."

Forgetting herself, Yukina clasped Hiei's hands. "Did you say a few words over him before you did that?"

"Yes," he said, gently disengaging her hands. "I said that you were proud of him." So that was an untruth, but he _had_ said nice things involving Yukina.

"Thank you, Hiei," she whispered.

"Yukina," he said seriously, "I have to go now. I'm going to get Kurama and bring him back to Ningenkai. But I need you to not tell anyone that I'm alive. Not even the other girls."

"I understand. Wait—I have something to give you." She fumbled in her kimono for a second, and produced a tear gem. "For you. When I heard you had all died. I gave the other hiruiseki to Kurama."

"I can't—,"

"That's what Kurama said. Take it."

He relented and tucked it into the sash at his waist. "Thank you."

"Hiei—be careful."

He nodded, and she turned around and walked away steadily, after offering him one final, quavery smile.

_She knows._ Somehow, the thought didn't bother him that much. He dashed off to find another ship that had gone the same way as Kurama's.

--

"The voyage will only take half a day," Karasu informed him, sitting on the edge of the bed in the cabin. He grimaced: even though the lower half of Karasu's face was covered by that mask, Kurama was getting quite good at reading his facial expressions. "But even that seems too long to me. I hate traveling over water."

"Prone to seasickness?" Kurama taunted, standing stubbornly on the other side of the bed.

"You could say that," Karasu replied delicately. "I will want this cabin entirely to myself. You will stay with Bui." He raised his voice. "Bui!"

The armored youkai entered. "Take Kurama to your room. Keep an eye on him."

Bui inclined his head in acknowledgement and indicated for Kurama to follow him. Karasu smiled wearily as the pair of them left. The ship chose to roll violently at that particular moment, and Karasu hurriedly bent over a silver basin on the dresser, fumbling at his mask.

--

The main benefit of being with Bui was that he seemed to be completely uninterested in Kurama. His disinclination for speech was another plus.

Kurama fleetingly wondered why two such unlikely companions were continuing to travel together when their bond to Toguro had been broken. But he had not forgotten their little display of teamwork when Bui had helped Karasu by smashing his fist into the wall to distract Kurama at their first encounter, allowing Karasu to sneak up behind him and caress his neck.

Bui stopped at a door and opened it, allowing Kurama to go in first. By the time he closed the door behind them, Kurama's nimble mind was already racing. He had a whole day with Bui, whom he might not be able to escape from, but from whom he might be able to extract useful information.

"So," he said, sitting down at a chair in the middle of the room. "What do you intend to do the entire day?"

"I need to plan our itinerary for Makai," Bui responded curtly.

Kurama raised an eyebrow. "I thought Karasu was the one in charge here."

He hoped to goad Bui into revealing important details; if he was careful enough, he could coax substantial tidbits from the armored youkai. Also, by occupying his mind with complicated schemes to get out of his current situation, he kept his crushing grief for his teammates at bay.

"We are partners. He trusts me." Bui also sat.

"How come?"

No response. Damn, he'd let his eagerness get the better of him. At least Bui hadn't walked off to "plan our itinerary" yet.

"What do you mean by 'itinerary'? Where are we going?" Bui's phrasing made it sound as though he were running a travel agency.

"There is a certain destination we must reach," Bui said calmly. A queer thrill ran through Kurama at this news. _He must mean Nekura!_

"I know that you will probably be bored, but I can't chat with you the entire day." Damn again, foiled anyway. "Go into the bedroom and don't disturb me. I will bring lunch to you."

Kurama stared at him, then got up stiffly and disappeared into the bedroom. Bui watched him go, then slipped a hand into the opening between his mask and helmet to pinch the bridge of his nose. He had a feeling that this whim—no, _obsession_—of Karasu's was going to end up being more trouble than he was worth.

He toyed briefly with the notion of walking into the bedroom and choking the life out of the bloody reincarnated kitsune, but knew he was incapable. It would upset Karasu, and Bui could never bring himself to cause the other sorrow.

Then again, he also found himself strangely sympathetic to Kurama. His fight with Karasu had been spectacular, and Bui was bound to respect anyone who gave Karasu so much difficulty in battle.

Back in his cabin, Karasu was just replacing his mask over his face. He got up with less than his usual grace to empty the basin into the sink in the adjoining bathroom. As he made his way to the door, he had to lean heavily against it to catch his breath.

Birds were never meant for water, with the exceptions of ducks, geese, and the like. _Anomalies_, Karasu scoffed. He was much happier on the ground, in the air, or "perched" within the branches of a tree. With a smile, he remembered the crushing embrace of Kurama's giant mimosa plant.

He'd lied when he told Kurama he had no interest in horticulture. As a connoisseur of beauty, he admired elegance in all things. Like their cousins the magpies, crows were collectors.

Flowers were the contents of nature's infinite jewelry box: foxgloves were her chandelier earrings, hibiscuses her hat pins, dahlias the gems at her throat. As someone who wielded a whip fashioned from a rose, the queen of flowers, Kurama was the embodiment of nature's beauty. Karasu sighed as he finished rinsing the basin. In a little under a month, perhaps, Kurama would be his completely.

On another ship bound in the same direction, Hiei sat in a dark, enclosed compartment which he had chosen as his hiding place. Thankfully, unlike the other dark and enclosed compartment he had been confined to, this one was eminently odorless, though _he_ stunk enough to more than make up for it.

_Kurama_, he thought, smiling with grim humor. _I'm never going to let you live this down. No one is ever going to forget that I had to chase you down and rescue you like a knight storming the locked tower of some feckless princess._

_So you better be alive for me to rescue._

And if he wasn't—well, Hiei was just going to have to think of a whole host of new ways to inflict a long and painful death on Karasu.

--

A/N: I adore this chapter. You should, too. XD

Seriously, it was relatively easy and a lot of fun to write. Chapter four might take longer than a week to be posted, though, because that's when the story really starts to pick up the pace, and I want to edit it obsessively. But keep the love coming in the meantime!

Oh yeah—I forgot to mention that the rating on this might have to be upped in later chapters. Just so you're all forewarned.


	4. Paralyzed Force

4. Paralyzed Force; Gesture without Motion

--

They arrived at the mainland without incident. Kurama had spent the entire time reclined on Bui's bed, thinking up different scenarios and plotting escape strategies for each one. Unfortunately, he hadn't been too productive, as visions of Yusuke, Kuwabara, and Hiei dying painfully swam through his mind on a regular basis.

Bui had come in to give him lunch, as promised. Kurama devoured the poorly cooked rice and limp slices of fish despite his total lack of appetite, aware that he had skipped breakfast and that he needed to be in top form if he wanted to get away.

After all, the severe wounds Karasu had inflicted with his bombs hadn't completely healed, and eating enough was an important part of recovery. Also, Kurama wanted to occupy himself with recovering as well as plotting instead of mourning.

Once the ship stopped, Bui gathered up the three suitcases and motioned for Kurama to follow him. They met Karasu in the hall and the three of them disembarked.

"Here at last," Karasu said, rising on his toes and throwing his chest and arms out as he stretched luxuriously. "You've arranged our transportation to Kosui, Bui?"

"Yes. It will be here shortly."

Standing between them, Kurama looked around furtively, trying to find out where "here" was. The road in front of the docks was wide and paved with gray stones, and led to a tiny village in the distance, surrounded by a huge forest.

Karasu seemed to sense his inquisitiveness. "I travel frequently and keep several houses, but our current business is in the country of Alaric. We will be staying in a house in the village of Kosui. In fact, I believe that is our carriage right now . . ."

Alaric was the kingdom with the ruler who was shrouded in mystery—Mukuro—if Kurama remembered correctly. He too had traveled frequently as a thief while searching for treasure, but he couldn't recall a village named Kosui. Kurama's attention, however, was soon diverted from his geographical musings.

A handsome black carriage with gilt trappings that had been tearing up the road at a terrific pace (much to the dismay of many pedestrians) clattered to a halt in front of them. It was driven by a lithe, black-suited youkai and drawn by two reptilian black horses with shining amber eyes. Kurama noted that they weren't even breathing hard, despite the lightning-like gallop at which they had traveled.

His head spinning, Kurama wondered about Karasu's "frequent traveling" and "several houses," and the emblem on the carriage—three elegant shuriken wrought in shapes resembling Celtic knots.

Before he could open his mouth to ask about any of this, though, he felt a sharp, sudden pain localized at his hip.

"What the—,"

"Sorry," Karasu said lightly, as he withdrew the syringe. "You couldn't have escaped from the ship, but I won't take any chances now. Especially as this carriage cannot take us all the way and walking will eventually be required. But don't worry. Bui will carry you safely for that stretch."

The ground lurched violently beneath Kurama's feet as his vision began to fade. He threw out his arms in the delusional hope of finding a support to grab onto, but the last thing he felt was Bui's solid arms catching him and depositing him in the carriage.

"Are we going to Takara first?"

"Yes. I had considered seeing her later, but I believe that after this incident," Karasu waved at Kurama's unconscious body, which was stretched out across the bench opposite the one he and Bui were sitting on, "it will be . . . more prudent to visit her as soon as we arrive."

Bui nodded as the horses sped up, the pounding of their hooves like thunder. He looked away from Kurama's prone body, out of the window, where the trees blurred into one broad green stripe that looked as if it had been painted by a hand wielding a giant paintbrush. The green bled and filled up the window, forcing Bui to look away, as the color resembled the shade of the kitsune's eyes too much, and Karasu was the only one who wanted to drown in them.

--

Kurama's eyes snapped open and immediately closed again as the darkened ground rushed towards his face and just as quickly, rushed away.

Carefully, he opened them again and realized that he was slung over Bui's shoulder, and they were climbing up the stairs to the front of a house. The ground continued to dip and rise as Bui walked, and Kurama shifted uneasily in his awkward position.

"Are we at your house?" he demanded, raising his head around to try and glare at Karasu. Instantly, Bui's burly arm tightened around his waist.

Karasu extended his hand to brush Kurama's bangs out of his eyes; Kurama fumed at the indignity of his position.

"I see you're awake. It would have been better if you had remained unconscious a little longer." Karasu dropped his hand as Kurama's lip curled savagely. "This is not my house. We are at the home of an . . . acquaintance."

_Not Nekura!_ Kurama thought in horror, but Karasu continued.

"Her name is Takara." _A woman?_ "I am sure your conduct is exemplary amongst women, but I feel the need to remind you to be a gentleman in her presence."

"No guarantees, if she's _your_ friend," Kurama strained to say against Bui's back; his neck had tired, forcing him to drop his head again.

Karasu gave him a thin smile and struck the heavy brass knocker on the door several times. It was fashioned skillfully in the shape of an eagle holding a ring in its claws. Kurama couldn't see it, but he could tell that Takara was wealthy from the width and sheen of the polished stone steps that comprised his field of vision at the moment.

The door flew open almost instantaneously. A flurry of jewel-bright silks and clouds of perfume burst out, squealing, "_Karasu-saaaan!"_

Bui hastily took a step back, but the overwhelming scents of musk and sandalwood still assaulted Kurama's nose and throat, and he dissolved into husky coughs.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a lanky girl with a head of blonde curls hugging Karasu enthusiastically. If the situation hadn't been so bizarre and potentially dangerous for himself, Kurama would have laughed at the annoyed expression on Karasu's face. Now _he_ knew what it felt like to be the object of someone else's misplaced, oppressive affections.

"It's a pleasure to see you again as well, Takara-san," Karasu said in an unruffled tone as he extricated himself from her gangly arms, which were swamped in golden chains and varicolored gems.

"You're as cold as ever," she pouted, pivoting on her heel to face Bui. "Hello, Bui-san!"

"Good evening, Takara-san."

"Oh!" Spidery fingers parted Kurama's hair, which had fallen in front of his face. He tried not to cough onto the girl as her perfume attacked his keen sense of smell once more. "Is this the boy you were talking about?"

Curious green eyes roughly the size and shape of 500-yen coins stared up into Kurama's face.

"Yes. That's Kurama." When it appeared that no greeting was forthcoming, Karasu added, "He's delighted to make your acquaintance."

As Kurama opened his mouth to protest, Takara smiled and turned back towards Karasu.

"Oh, where are my manners? Come in! We can do introductions properly inside." She led the way, her coral and cream kimono swishing as she went.

While they walked, she chastened Karasu. "You haven't been to see me in months! I was beginning to think you'd forgotten all about me!"

"If Takara-san did not hear, I was indentured into the Toguro brothers' service a while ago," Karasu replied in a low voice. "I only recently—"

"Oh, psh! Toguro brothers!" she cut him off, waving a hand carelessly. "_Don't_ give me any more of your excuses, Karasu!" With the last sentence, she threw her hand dramatically at the base of her neck, and looked away as if in pain.

Kurama repressed a snort with difficulty. Were Takara's crush on Karasu any more obvious, it would have to be painted on her forehead in indelible ink. She seemed like a nice enough (though rather puerile) young woman; her interest in a pseudo-rapist like Karasu was inexplicable to Kurama.

The sumptuous insides of the house confirmed Kurama's suspicions that the lady was wealthy. Even though his range of vision was still mostly limited to the ground, he noticed that under the thick and intricately woven rugs lay a handsome parquet floor in rich hues of mahogany. He saw several enormous porcelain vases standing around in intervals, and he even saw the insignia of the three shuriken worked on one. Had Takara sent that grand carriage?

"Madam," said Karasu quietly as they approached a set of double doors that led into the sitting room, "I—"

But no one heard what he was about to say, for the doors were suddenly thrown open, accompanied not by perfumes or silks this time, but a sneering voice.

"It's good to see you again, Karasu, Bui," the speaker nodded coldly at both of them. "The rumors were that Toguro had tired of you and . . . terminated your service."

"Gossiping with drunks rarely yields verity, Takeo," Karasu replied silkily. "As you see, Bui and I have . . . returned in triumph."

Kurama could not see Takeo's eyebrows shoot up, but he did hear his swift intake of breath.

"You—you won the Dark Tournament?"

"Yes," said Karasu, immense smugness contained in that single word. "Here is my prize."

"A boy?" There was a pause as Takeo scrutinized Kurama. "A _human_ boy?"

"Not just a human boy," Karasu smirked.

"Otousan!" Takara whined. Kurama knew she wouldn't have stayed quiet for long. "Why don't you stop harassing Karasu-san and let them go in and sit?"

"All right," Takeo said grudgingly, moving to let them pass. He pulled a string to ring a bell outside the room, then entered after them. Karasu took a seat on an overstuffed velvet armchair, Bui put Kurama on a sofa upholstered in embroidered silk and sat next to him, and Takeo and his daughter occupied a matching sofa.

A servant who had apparently been summoned by the bell appeared, with tea and cookies. Takeo gruffly waved for them to help themselves, but only Karasu and Takara complied.

Kurama rolled his head around on his shoulders, trying to assuage the pains in his stiff neck. This room, like the rest of the house, was extravagantly furnished, and he also took in their hosts' appearances completely for the first time.

If Takara had been a human, he would have put her age at around twenty, but her unnatural thinness and elongated limbs dispensed all question of humanity. Also, her fingernails were green, and it didn't look like nail polish.

Her father also looked as if he had been underfed and put through a torture rack, but his fingers were a bit closer to normal length. He was dressed well, like his daughter, though unadorned except for a gold ring in his nose. His eyes were slit-like instead of round, and he gazed sharply at their visitors.

"So tell me why you have brought this not-human boy to my house—or rather, to my daughter, seeing that I was not informed of your visit beforehand."

"I didn't expect you to be home," Karasu said smoothly. "I assumed you would not be overjoyed to hear I was back, and judging from our reception, I was right. I wanted to save you the unpleasantness I was sure my appearance would afford you, but I need Takara's help with Kurama. And _she_ did want to see me."

Takara stuck her tongue out at her father, who ignored her and demanded, "What kind of help? Takara's powers are limited to—"

He stopped as he looked at Kurama, taking in the situation. Karasu smirked as the light of understanding dawned in his eyes. Kurama, however, still didn't understand, but another feeling was dawning on him as well: fear. What were Takara's powers limited to?

"Who is he, anyway?"

"Surely you've heard of Youko Kurama, the infamous thief?"

"The one who was killed by a hunter."

"Not quite."

Takeo blinked in disbelief, gawping at Kurama. "This is Youko Kurama?"

"He is understandably altered by his time in Ningenkai . . .but yes, the very same."

Takeo burst out laughing. "I was going to charge you for Takara's services," he said over Takara's shrill protests of _I'd never take money from Karasu-san!_

"But now I'm only too glad to help you. More than fifty years ago, this bastard broke into my house when I was out, terrorized my servants and daughter, and stole several invaluable artifacts! Being at your mercy is worse than any retribution I could possibly devise." Takeo smiled toothily.

Kurama swallowed. Takeo was probably telling the truth. He had stolen from so many people more than fifty years ago that he didn't remember individual jobs anymore. Takeo was so rich, though, that his household had likely been a tempting prospect. Even Takara's eyes had hardened.

"Thank you for your cooperation, Takeo-san," Karasu said pleasantly.

"Of course." Takeo's eyes flickered to Bui. "And Bui, what did you request as your prize?"

To everyone's surprise, Bui replied curtly, "That is between the tournament officials and myself."

Takeo's agreeable demeanor clouded. Sensing that his host's goodwill was fading, Karasu stepped in.

"Bui received some little trinket. A necklace, I believe."

Takeo eyed Bui's thick neck skeptically. Kurama shared his disbelief.

"For sentimental reasons," Karasu added hastily.

Because of Bui's helmet and mouth guard, it was impossible to see his reaction to Karasu's divulging his secret, but Kurama guessed that he was greatly displeased. He wondered about Bui's bizarre, seemingly meaningless choice, but his attention was soon diverted to more pressing matters.

Karasu went on. "We won't take up much more of your time. Takara has agreed to seal in Kurama's ki for me, and in the time that it takes her to do that, I'd appreciate it if you updated me on the current state of the Shikaku."

Kurama didn't hear much besides "seal in Kurama's ki," and he actually sprang up in terror. Bui seized him instantly, though, and forced him down.

Kurama struggled fiercely, but the injuries Karasu had inflicted on him during their match were still in the process of healing, and they prevented him from using his full force. He even tried using his depleted youki to summon a demon plant, but to no avail.

Bui ripped his tunic off, and Takara approached him grimly. Her fingers were fully extended and glowing with ki.

It was painless, as it had been when Gama had done the same thing in the Dark Tournament. But Gama had done it with blood, which could be washed off, and Takara was doing it purely with youki, tracing complicated patterns on his arms, legs, and chest. Kurama yelled in frustration and actually tried to bite her, but she drew away in time and slapped him.

"Oh, Kurama," Karasu said, breaking his conversation with her father for a moment, "please don't think you'll be able to cut yourself open and plant seeds in your own flesh to use your youki. Takara's ability far outstrips Gama's; you won't be able to make anything grow, inside or out of you."

"That's right!" Takara agreed cheerfully, tracing on Kurama's face as Bui shoved his head down.

"There!" she said smugly, twenty minutes later. The tracings flared silver for a moment, then faded away, leaving Kurama's skin unmarked to the naked eye. "Finished."

"Domo arigatou gozaimasu, Takara-san," Karasu murmured, bowing deeply in her direction. "I don't see how I'll ever be able to repay you."

It was too strange to see Karasu interacting, well, _normally_ with others in a social situation. Despite his sinister stalker tendencies, he clearly knew how to conduct himself acceptably and uphold his end of conversations. But Kurama couldn't ponder the bizarreness of what was happening in front of him very much.

His face burned as he sat up and struggled to cover himself again with his torn tunic. Much to his embarrassment, now that Bui was no longer pinning him down, he began to help him. He tried to push Bui away, but the other silently and inexorably assisted Kurama in pulling his ripped clothes back on.

Takara blushed and fluttered a hand at Karasu in dismissal. "No need, Karasu-san, really."

"Oh, but I insist," he said quietly, fixing his eyes on her in a manner that she obviously could not resist.

"All right, then," she giggled, tapping at her cheek with one bizarrely long finger. "A kiss, here."

Karasu barely blinked, although he did look a little exasperated. He approached Takara, and she leaned out, presenting her cheek to him. Kurama could not help watching in fascinated disgust as Karasu undid his mask and planted an airy kiss on the swell of her cheekbone.

Swiftly, Kurama glanced at Takeo to see his reaction. He merely looked a little irritated. Clearly, Takara's crush on Karasu was old news that he had long ago resigned himself to witnessing again and again. It seemed to Kurama that Takara had no idea what Karasu wanted with him; he doubted she would have been so happy to seal his ki in if she'd known Karasu's true purpose.

Karasu promptly replaced his mask and addressed Takeo. "Thank you too, Takeo-san, for your hospitality." Only a very intent listener would have caught the slight sneer on the word "hospitality." "I hope to see you and your charming daughter again soon."

Takara simpered.

"Bui, I don't think there's any need to carry Kurama out. He can walk by himself now."

They got to their feet, Kurama screaming curses at Karasu in his mind, and just bursting to open his mouth and let them all out.

Being sealed like that didn't exactly hurt, but there was a peculiar constricted sensation associated with it. Sometimes it felt like circulation to a part of his body was being cut off, but when he really concentrated, Kurama realized that it was a trick of the mind. Still, the feeling was tangible and unpleasant.

"Shall I escort you out?" Takara asked sweetly.

"I wouldn't want to trouble you," said Karasu.

"Oh no, it wouldn't be any trouble at—," Takara began, but her father interrupted her impatiently. He'd had enough of her idiocy to last for a while now.

"They know the way out, Takara. Leave them be." She pouted, but no one paid heed.

Kurama was glad to get out of there on his own two feet, even with his disastrous new disability. They mounted the carriage again, but once they were settled in, Kurama's relief gave way to furious indignation.

He fixed Karasu with a hateful stare. Alarmingly, Karasu saw a flash of gold in his eyes. The truth was that with the series of traumatic events he had been forced to endure, Kurama was falling back increasingly upon his callous Youko side in order to cope. After all, Karasu had feared Youko. Youko had been able to smell it, and Karasu hadn't dared to taunt him.

"Now you're free to force yourself on me without having to worry that I'm going to rip your testicles off with demonic vines or anything like that," he spat. "Well done."

"I've already told you that I won't take you until you're quite ready for it," Karasu said placidly as the carriage began to roll again.

"What do you mean by _ready_? On your bed with spread legs and begging for it?"

"That's not what I meant, but it would make a nice surprise."

"Why are you even waiting?" Kurama scoffed. "I don't see you having any problems with rape."

"My reasons are my own," Karasu said peremptorily. "And as much as I enjoy you when you are feeling . . . spirited, you should calm down, Kurama."

Again, Kurama felt a strange uneasiness that Karasu was behaving with such self-restraint. This uncharacteristic discipline in his manner did not bode well. At the very least, Kurama thought anxiously, it would intensify the fury of the storm when it finally broke.

"We are now going to my house," Karasu continued. "Takeo lives very close to me."

"Why are you and Bui traveling together?"

"You're full of questions, aren't you?" Karasu raised an eyebrow.

Bui answered unexpectedly. "Our association goes back longer than our mutual servitude under Toguro."

"How?" persisted Kurama, getting interested in spite of himself.

Karasu chuckled. "I'll indulge you, as you've just undergone a rather unnerving ordeal."

Kurama glared.

"I will be able to tell you the whole story in the time it takes us to arrive. However, you'll understand if some details are . . . obscure."

Kurama nodded impatiently, his intense gaze flickering between the pair of them.

"To begin with," Karasu said, "before I was bound into Toguro's service, I was a member of the Shikaku. You haven't heard of them?" he asked, observing Kurama's blank look.

"No."

"Well, we are not a very large group. Elite organizations rarely are. Still, someone such as Youko Kurama ought to have known the Shikaku on account of its very elitism." Karasu smirked at that needling remark.

"Get on with it."

"The Shikaku are a group of highly trained assassins. They sell their services to affluent youkai with reasons to want their enemies out of the way, be they economical, political or personal. Takeo is also a member of the Shikaku"

"So that's what the symbol of the three shuriken is for," Kurama blurted out.

"Very good," said Karasu, looking at him through half-lidded eyes. His face was partially obscured by his fine hair.

Kurama blinked warily. It probably wasn't a good idea to let Karasu know when he observed important details, or figured things out.

"So you're basically a prostitute!" Kurama said, mustering enough contempt to drip copiously from every word. "You rent out your body."

"You hired people like me in your past life," Karasu pointed out smugly.

Kurama swallowed. How could he know about Yomi? Karasu seemed eerily well-informed about Kurama's past. But, he reminded himself hastily, he had sicced hit men on other rivals . . . youkai who had dared to flaunt his authority.

"I thought you'd be a pimp," Kurama retorted, trying to mask his disquiet. "Or a professional rapist."

"Such harsh judgment of my skills! I realize I did lose to you, but please don't have such a low opinion of me. Some day, I'd like to fight you again."

Kurama met Karasu's mirthful eyes and swore, _I'll make that happen_.

Aloud, he said instead, "Bui is also a member of the Shikaku?"

"By proxy, I suppose," Karasu said slowly. It sounded as if he hadn't really thought about it before. "They do not officially recognize him, but it is understood that he is my helper."

"Why aren't you officially recognized?" Kurama asked Bui.

"Because I didn't apply for membership," said Bui, a rare touch of humor in his answer.

"This doesn't tell me how you met," Kurama pointed out.

Karasu shrugged delicately, turning to look out the window. "I think that had best be left as another story for another day." Bui sat in wordless assent.

Realizing a lost cause when he saw one, Kurama changed tack. "What is behind Takara's strange attraction to you?"

"Strange?" Karasu laughed. "Maybe to you, but surely it is apparent now that I'm not that undesirable as a lover. You would do well to change your mind, Kurama."

"She must be blind," Kurama muttered with ill grace.

"Blind? I was going to say the reason behind her excessive attachment to me was simply my stunning good looks." Karasu pushed his hair out of his face to smile broadly at Kurama. The carriage slowed to a halt. "But we're here."

Bui got up and jumped out. Karasu followed, and held out his hand to help Kurama descend, which Kurama ignored. Completely unperturbed, Karasu bowed to him and gestured at the house in front of them.

"Welcome to my home."

--

A/N: **Funara**, did you catch our in-joke? It was so _surreal_ that you happened to randomly mention what I had written about. XD

I'm tremendously pleased to see that some of you clever, clever reviewers are wondering about Bui's role in this story, Karasu's newfound self-restraint, and the possibility of Yusuke and Kuwabara's resurrection. All of these are interesting questions that will eventually be dealt with in later chapters (satisfactorily or not, depends on the reader's judgment), but only two of the above are really integral to the story.

Don't worry, I haven't forgotten about Hiei!

Otousan—father  
Domo arigatou gozaimasu—the formal version of "thank you"


	5. Over the Threshold

5. Over the Threshold

--

The house so greatly resembled a samurai manor home, Kurama thought it might have been lifted out of the Heian period. Even in the dim evening light, he could see its ornately roofed main gate, the Japanese maples growing in the courtyard, and the forest that surrounded it.

Karasu approached the bronze doors and placed his hands on the elaborate handles shaped like ogres' heads. Just as Kurama noted the absence of a keyhole, the handles glowed brightly under Karasu's touch, and the doors swung open.

Kurama was familiar with ki-activated locks. The owner keyed them to open to his own unique ki signature, and some could even be keyed to multiple ki signatures, such as those of family members or business partners. Kurama had used this kind of lock when he'd been a thief, to guard his stolen treasure, but he hadn't let others' locks keep him from getting at theirs.

At the height of his power as a youko, all it had taken was a brief, overwhelming burst of his youki to override most locks. Since all his youki was now sealed in, he had no chance of fleeing from here. He wasn't even sure that he'd had enough youki in his human body to break out under normal circumstances.

The locks worked both ways: they could lock people in and out. In Karasu's house, Kurama would effectively be bolted in. He wondered about Bui.

"Are your locks keyed to Bui's ki as well?"

"Of course they are," said Bui with the slightest touch of scorn.

"Why wouldn't they be?" Karasu asked, motioning for them to enter.

Again, Kurama speculated about Bui and Karasu's history and their relationship. They made an unlikely pair, but they appeared to be coordinated partners, and even friends.

The courtyard had been swept recently; white stone benches stood under the swaying branches of maple and cherry trees. Several exquisite marble statues adorned the corners of the courtyard. Karasu passed swiftly under their shadows to the front doors of the main house and opened them as well.

Kurama followed and stepped over the threshold and looked around in amazement. The house's furnishings were sumptuously extravagant to the point of bad taste.

On the far wall opposite the doors hung a massive mirror with an ostentatious gold frame encrusted with pearls the size of a baby's head. Small tables standing at intervals down the front hall supported cloisonné vases containing flowers whose petals were slivers of purple jade, and enormous silk scrolls of landscape watercolors hung between the tables.

Kurama walked forward, when there was suddenly a deafening creaking sound beneath his feet. He jumped and looked around guiltily despite himself.

"I'm afraid you have to watch your step in this house," Karasu said. "It was built by a rich youkai who lived in constant fear of assassination attempts by his greedy relatives. These are 'nightingale floors' that will squeak loudly as they are trod upon, unless you know the proper way to silence them with your ki. The idea was that it would wake him or his servants in time, or scare the assassin into taking off."

Karasu paused smugly.

"Unfortunately for him, I managed to get past this particular defense and kill him. His cousin, who hired me, seized his money and his other estates, but this house came to me. You see, fringe benefits are the best part of my job."

His violet eyes flashed in amusement as he waved his hand, and the lamps on the walls sprang to life, illuminating the entire house. Kurama's eyes narrowed: another ki-activated device. If the rest of Karasu's houses were all like this, he certainly lived in style.

"Since you are unable to use your ki at all, I'm afraid you must walk noisily the entire time we stay in this house. And I rather like the idea of being able to hear you, wherever you are."

Kurama couldn't help making an ugly face at him.

"I must leave you now," Karasu said, smiling at him. "The Shikaku has been busy in my absence, and I cannot lose any time in catching up. I expect Hiroshi-sama will be pleased to see me again." He directed the last remark at Bui, who nodded in agreement.

Karasu continued, "I want to freshen up quickly before I go, however. I'm sure you will be happy to show Kurama around in the meantime, Bui." He strode off down the hall.

Hiroshi-sama must be the head of the Shikaku. Before Kurama could ponder it too much, though, Bui spoke.

"Come. Your bedroom is upstairs."

He led the way past several closed doors and doorways that he tersely pointed out to Kurama as bathrooms, parlors, spare bedrooms, dining rooms, and such. At last, they ascended a staircase, Kurama creaking loudly all the while, and Bui threw open a set of mahogany doors.

The room inside was spacious, and large windows took up one entire wall. A canopy bed covered in a king's ransom of silk sheets and big enough for two Toguro Otoutos occupied another wall, and a polished mahogany dresser and wardrobe stood against the other walls. Like the rest of the house, the room's décor was ridiculously lavish.

"You will be sleeping with Karasu. I believe you will find suitable clothing in the wardrobe. When Karasu is done, you should bathe as well."

The wardrobe contained a kaleidoscopic array of men's kimonos which Karasu had apparently never touched, because they were in excellent condition. Kurama guessed they had belonged to the house's former owner, and surprisingly, they looked as if they would fit him.

Bui was as good as his word. Once Karasu had left, he led Kurama downstairs to the bathroom, which contained an ofuro.

"Put your clothes here," said Bui, dragging out a wooden chair. Kurama draped the simple blue kimono he had chosen out of the wardrobe over the back. Bui turned on the taps to fill the ofuro. "Clean yourself while you wait for it to fill. If you have any problems, call me."

"Thank you," said Kurama, blinking a little at Bui's graciousness. Bui hesitated and looked at Kurama before leaving. Kurama wondered what, if anything, he had been about to say. Bui's face was even more completely covered than Karasu's and thus wholly unreadable. They were both masked men, in many ways.

Once Bui had closed the door behind him, Kurama gingerly tested the seals on his ki. He fumbled in his hair for a rosebud, and attempted the simple task of making it bloom. He felt nothing but the dull constriction of the wards; no surge of energy flooded his fingertips and opened the red petals. The rosebud only bobbed gently in his quivering hand.

"Damn it!" he said, because he could do nothing else. But the youko rose in him again, and his resolve stiffened.

He threw the tightly closed rosebud aside and undressed clumsily with fingers that were trembling violently now with angry helplessness.

_This obstacle only serves to temper your determination,_ Youko whispered. _We'll have to think our way around this._

Kurama's trembling fingers gradually stilled, and he calmed enough to fold his clothes and drape them neatly over the back of the chair. He lifted the small silk pouch containing Yukina's hiruiseki from around his neck, placing it carefully on the seat of the chair.

_That's it,_ Youko said.

He washed himself carefully, as his bubbling emotions cooled and hardened like hammered steel.

Then Kurama closed his eyes and sank into the hot water of the ofuro, intending to have a good, long soak. Youko murmured ceaselessly to him all the while, and a definite scheme began to take shape within the calming susurrus of his low, sinuous voice.

--

Outside the house, Karasu mounted the waiting carriage and said tersely to the driver, "To Hiroshi's." The driver nodded and cracked his whip, sending the black horses tearing down the road.

During the ride, Karasu gazed out the window and let his mind engage in idle, pleasant fantasizing. He pictured Kurama's pliant body and the clear tracks that drops of hot water would cut through his skin as he bathed. In his mind's eye, he saw Kurama's brilliant hair plastered to his back in wet, fantastic curls, and his fingers twitched with the longing to stroke and comb it.

Karasu could afford to let his thoughts wander. He had already prepared the few words of his short return speech, and he was confident of a gracious welcome back into the Shikaku. After all, Hiroshi needed him.

--

Kurama opened his eyes with a start, suddenly aware that he had dozed off. His fingertips were almost painfully wrinkled, and the water had cooled considerably. Wincing, he got up and began to towel himself off, planning to ask Bui for a tour of the house as soon as he was done.

--

"Good evening, Hiroshi-sama," said Karasu deferentially, bowing. "Forgive the short notice, but I thought it was better to come see you immediately, rather than waiting until you were properly informed." _Although I'd bet one of my houses that Takeo has tipped you off already._

"You know many of the Shikaku whispered that you and Bui were dead at the hands of the Toguro brothers," said Hiroshi in a colorless tone, carefully looking past Karasu's head.

"They clamored for me to divide your houses and goods amongst them, insisting that there was no way you would ever return to claim them."

Then Hiroshi looked squarely at Karasu and smiled broadly. "I took your property in hand and looked after it, so that it would be waiting for you when you returned."

Karasu's boss was a deceptively pleasant-featured youkai with aristocratically pale skin, so fair that it was nearly translucent and one could clearly see the blue veins running up his arms and through his neck. His long, gleaming hair was silver, though he hardly looked a day over twenty, and he wore it down his back in a fluid plait.

Karasu smiled as Hiroshi's grin grew wider, and he stood up to offer his right hand to Karasu. Karasu stepped up and took it, bending to make a kissing sound in the air above the back of Hiroshi's hand. He straightened and shook his hair back.

"Hiroshi-sama is far-seeing as always."

"Take a seat," Hiroshi waved to him, "and tell me how you came to be freed."

"We entered the Dark Tournament . . . and won."

Hiroshi's expression was both impressed and proud. "Was your freedom your wish?"

"Toguro promised us freedom if we won."

"So what was your wish?"

Karasu told him.

Hiroshi let out a bark of laughter. "You have good taste, as always. But where is he? I'd like to see the fallen youko."

"Bui's at home taking care of him."

Understanding flashed in Hiroshi's eyes; though Bui was not acknowledged by the Shikaku, Hiroshi always ensured that Bui received a share of the fringe benefits in the assignments he undertook with Karasu.

"Actually, we won't be staying in this area very long. We must press on to Nekura."

"I see," said Hiroshi thoughtfully.

"But I will be happy to carry out any commissions that Hiroshi-sama needs done while I am in the vicinity."

Hiroshi lit up at once. "There is, in fact, one small issue that needs to be taken care of. Garbage disposal, really. I wouldn't trouble you so soon after your return, but this is so minor that I'm sure you'll have no problems with it."

"I am always happy to be of assistance," Karasu murmured.

"There is a trifling annoyance by the name of Sawashima Kiriyama. He's been calling me the most shocking names in public, and spreading all kinds of slander. I believe we took care of someone close to him last month, but that's really no reason to smear the Shikaku's good name."

"Consider it done," said Karasu quietly.

"Now, I'm sure you want to return to your pretty kitsune as soon as possible," Hiroshi smirked, "but let me detain you a while longer. I have something of a welcome-back present for you."

So Takeo _had_ informed him in time to prepare a present.

"Hiroshi-sama is too kind," said Karasu.

"Nonsense," said Hiroshi, clapping his hands loudly. "I do feel rather guilty about the whole Toguro fiasco."

Karasu was surprised that he alluded to it so openly, and had actually come close to apologizing. The fact was that someone with a grudge against the Toguro brothers had appealed to the Shikaku, and Hiroshi had given the job to Karasu, little knowing how powerful the Toguro brothers were. Once he'd been defeated and forced to become their indentured servant, Karasu had been livid, but he had long ago come to the conclusion that he could not blame Hiroshi for his own incompetence.

"I have to treat youkai like yourself well," he continued smoothly. "All the new blood these days is woefully inept."

A servant entered bearing a large rosewood trunk adorned with gold filigree.

"What is it?"

"Just a small token of my appreciation," Hiroshi said. "I really am quite glad to have you back, Karasu." The quiet sincerity in his voice was unmistakable.

To the servant: "Take it out to Karasu's carriage."

"_Itte kimasu_," said Karasu, bowing deeply again. "Rest assured that you will never hear from Kiriyama again."

"Goodnight," Hiroshi replied fondly. "Be sure to bring the kitsune by next time."

Karasu smiled and left. After he had re-entered the carriage and the horses had taken up their thunderous gallop, he turned to the gift with great interest.

Hiroshi gave excellent gifts when he was inclined to give gifts at all, usually because the recipient was someone whose good graces he needed to stay in.

This was true for Karasu, as he was one of the Shikaku's top hit men, but there was also genuine mutual respect between the two of them. Hiroshi did not befriend his subordinates, and Karasu was difficult to befriend, but they certainly had a closer relationship than could be found between most mob bosses and their underlings. But their acquaintance had persisted for years; indeed, Hiroshi had almost single-handedly raised Karasu from childhood and instructed him in the ways of assassins.

The debt Karasu owed for Hiroshi's guidance and care had been amply repaid since, with his nearly unbroken string of successful dispatches and devoted service. Still, Karasu harbored a remarkable degree of affection towards Hiroshi, and the only thing that curbed his desire to kill him—as he did with all that he loved—was the knowledge that his powers were inferior to Hiroshi's, and that he'd probably come off worse if they were to fight.

Karasu deftly undid the latch of the chest and lifted the lid. When he saw what was inside, he blinked and smiled. He plunged his hands into the contents of the box, and his sensitive fingertips brushed over luxurious surfaces as he examined everything rapturously. Hiroshi-sama knew him quite well.

Gleaming combs of ivory and jade lay neatly in compartments of a two-part tray inside the box, next to ebony brushes whose backs were inlaid with mother-of-pearl. In the last row of compartments were nestled small glass bottles of different oils and perfumes, which glowed pink and olive in the moonlight.

Awash in anticipation, Karasu slid the trays apart to see what the bottom of the box held.

Velvet and silk hair ribbons in different colors were rolled into tidy kaleidoscopic bundles. Karasu untied one and let the ribbons trail through his fingers. Some were embroidered with seed pearls; others with sparkling chips of beryl and spinel.

Scattered amongst these bundles were fragrant sandalwood boxes. Karasu slid the lid off one to discover gold and silver hairpins. Another box contained pins fashioned like flowers, with emerald sepals, and garnet petals so dark they were black in the moonlight. These would become Kurama well, he noted happily, and then he was off, imagining how he would twine white silk through tumbling red locks, and hold those wild curls in place with gilt pins.

When the carriage stopped in front of his house, Karasu picked up the chest with a contented sigh and walked inside, dismissing the coachman with a negligently tossed coin and wave of his hand.

"I've sent Kurama to bed," Bui said by way of greeting. He was sitting on a couch, and had apparently bathed as well, as he was not wearing his armor. "How did it go?"

"I have an assignment named Kiriyama first thing tomorrow morning. Then I'd like to move on. We're on a timetable."

"Am I to come with you?"

"Actually," Karasu said carefully, "I'd like you to stay and keep Kurama company. I won't be gone long."

He watched Bui's face for any change in expression. Bui, however, schooled his features well; Karasu could not see any of the bitterness he felt written across his face.

"Of course."

Karasu's fears fell away and he smiled. Bui was always so solid, so dependable.

He bid him goodnight, and left for his bedroom, unaware that Bui's gaze lingered resentfully on his retreating back.

"Are you asleep?" he asked Kurama's prone form quietly as he entered.

Kurama offered no response; so, rather mischievously, Karasu formed a small bomb and sent it hovering mere inches from his face, where it detonated with a deafening bang disproportional to its size.

Kurama's eyes flew open, and his green irises were harrowed with shock. Gasping and shifting nervously away from the charred circle on the sheets where the bomb had exploded, he hissed, "What was _that_ for?"

Karasu laughed with obvious pleasure. "I wanted to know whether you were asleep or merely pretending."

"Bastard," muttered Kurama, barely restraining himself from pressing a hand to his violently palpitating heart. His eyes narrowed as he noticed the leer on Karasu's face. "I'm in no condition now to endure your little goodnight ritual after that, so leave me the hell alone."

"You're weakened by travel," Karasu observed amusedly, closing the door. He took off his mask and got into bed. "But I must inform you that I have an assignment tomorrow morning, so I probably won't see you until after lunch. Bui will look to your needs again."

Kurama heard all his words without absorbing them, and rudely turned away, pulling the blankets up to his chin. Karasu smiled fondly upon his recumbent form and spooned up to him. Kurama did not have the strength to recoil forcefully; so, encouraged, Karasu's arm tightened around him. He buried his maskless face in Kurama's hair, breathing in deeply. His nose brushed the tender skin of Kurama's neck, and he smiled against the masses of long, red locks.

--

The next morning, Kurama woke in an empty bed. He looked around blearily, expecting Karasu to saunter in, before remembering what he had been told the night before. He sat up and smiled wryly at the thought that Bui kept having to play babysitter. He couldn't be too happy about it. But it was a good opportunity for Kurama to try and wheedle more information out of Bui. Youko was eager to exercise his cunning.

He rose and selected a lavender kimono from his closet, dressed and washed, and went down to breakfast.

"Good morning," he said to Bui.

Bui grunted noncommittally.

"Are you angry that Karasu keeps asking you to stay at home and look after me?"

For a second Kurama thought he might have provoked Bui, but Bui actually chuckled at his forthrightness.

"You're rather perceptive, aren't you?"

"You could just . . . open a few locks for me and wash your hands of the matter," Kurama said slyly.

Bui's chuckle increased in volume. "Freedom from a few hours of inconvenience isn't worth suffering Karasu's displeasure. Don't appeal to me for help."

Kurama gave a small, genuine smile. It was the first time since the Dark Tournament.

--

At that very moment, Hiei was in the process of getting breakfast as well.

"B-but—if you can't pay, sir," stammered the vendor, ducking away from Hiei's unsheathed katana.

"Who said I couldn't pay?" asked Hiei, idly turning his sword around and watching the light spill off its edge. "I would think that letting you continue this pathetic travesty you call life payment enough," he said over the shopkeeper's protests of _You have no money!_

Hiei didn't have a cent, but better than that, he had Yukina's hiruiseki. Still, he wasn't inclined to part with that for anything less than the retrieval of Kurama from Karasu's side, safe and whole; and better than even the tear gem, he had his katana, which he was still twirling around menacingly, to the shopkeeper's dismay.

"But if you don't value your life, then I suppose that I _don't_ have anything to buy your food with."

"Oh, no, sir!" cried the vendor, who was now smiling widely and sweating bullets. "Please accept these steamed buns free of charge!"

He ended up giving Hiei not only an entire tray of steamed meat-and-vegetable buns but also a basin-sized bowl of soup and a pot of tea. Hiei smirked in satisfaction as the trembling marketplace food vendor fell over himself making sure Hiei was as comfortable as possible. For once things were going right.

He scowled as he remembered the excruciating voyage on the boat, where he'd had to crouch in a corner for hours, still wearing clothes sodden with filth. As soon as he had disembarked, he'd found a place with clothes similar to what he had been wearing, and got them for free off another terrified shopkeeper. Then he'd dunked himself in the ocean and burned his old clothes.

Once he was finally feeling reasonably clean, he tried using his Jagan to look for Kurama. Unfortunately, when it had been easy detecting unique ki signatures in Ningenkai, there were now so many different ki signatures in Makai, and many so strong that they obscured Kurama's trail, that Hiei was having considerable difficulty.

There was also the unfortunate complication that Bui had injured his Jagan at the Dark Tournament, and the healers had had a difficult time treating it. It would eventually be functional, but at the moment, even taking his bandana off and exposing it to the light was painful. He violently wished that he'd had the presence of mind to ask Yukina to heal it while he'd had the chance.

But at least the "scent" was still relatively fresh, so Hiei finished his breakfast quickly and began the painstaking task of tracing the route Kurama and his captors had taken. He followed it out of town and into a deserted forest, where most other ki faded, allowing him to pick out only two other distinct ki signatures: Karasu and Bui.

"Got you," Hiei muttered with savage delight, branding the wavelengths of their ki into his memory. He faltered slightly, however, as he followed them even deeper into the forest and the track seemed to diminish.

He cursed as the track finally disappeared. For half an hour, he circled the area, sniffing for new leads. Just as he was about to blast an unoffending nearby tree into cinders out of sheer frustration, he twitched as he felt the faint, resonating hum of familiar ki.

"Hn," he said triumphantly, racing off after it.

He was confused a moment later, though, when he heard the distant rustle of someone rushing away through the underbrush; more so when he saw fresh footprints in the dirt in front of him.

"Who's there?" he demanded loudly, looking around. No answer. He turned around and looked back, surprised to see footprints trailing away exactly the way Hiei had just come. Were they following the same path?

It was slightly unnerving, especially when he realized that the other had to be at least almost as fast as he was, to have fled so quickly. Hiei was disinclined to chase after the stranger, though, as he would lose time chasing after Kurama, and he supposed that so long as he wasn't bothered . . . but somehow, Hiei thought he hadn't seen the last of this stranger.

He approached the footprints directed towards the shrubbery and got a feel of the ki around it for future reference. The mysterious youkai was fairly powerful, and unfamiliar to Hiei, though that didn't surprise him. Then, puzzled by what had happened but determined to continue, he resumed pursuing Kurama.

He followed them through a more or less cleared path between the trees, and he thought he could see the tracks left by the wheels of the carriage they must have taken.

At last, the trail stopped in front of a great house over whose doors was emblazoned a silver logo of three intricate shuriken. Hiei looked up at its large wooden doors with grim anticipation, and, raising his katana, slashed his way in quietly.

--

At the same time, Karasu was also breaking and entering someone's house.

Kiriyama lived in a two-story cottage ("How quaint," Karasu murmured), and so far, Karasu had gotten past the wards and evaded all intruder traps with absolute ease. At this rate, Karasu thought, he'd be back by lunchtime. It had taken him a while to find where Kiriyama lived, but it appeared that the actual killing part wouldn't take more than five minutes.

He definitely sensed the other youkai's ki inside, but it was so faint that he had difficulty pinpointing the exact location. No matter. Karasu could simply have blown the entire cottage to bits, but he suspected Hiroshi might want to hang onto it. Though certainly not fit for habitation, compared to the manors the Shikaku regularly seized, new hideouts were always welcome.

"Hide upstairs only if you're prepared to jump out of the window," Karasu said under his breath, walking so lightly on the staircase that his boot heels didn't make even the faintest clicks on the wood. As he set foot on the second floor, however, Kiriyama proved that hiding wasn't really his thing.

"One of _his_, are you?" he hissed, leaping out from behind a corner and aiming several throwing daggers at Karasu's head. "This is for my brother!"

Karasu was surprised by his accuracy and force: two of the daggers actually pierced the points of his shirt's spiky collar and sunk into the wall behind him, thereby pinning him like some kind of peculiar black butterfly on display. The other daggers thudded into the wall. He shook himself free irritably; the daggers clattered to the ground and his collar ripped.

"It's admirable that someone as weak as you has taken on the Shikaku as his enemy, but you'd have done better to leave us alone," Karasu said coolly, creating a field of Muddy Bombs underneath the floorboards in advance.

Underground bombs were usually his last resort, and he didn't want to blow Kiriyama up quite yet. Inherently sadistic to the core, he enjoyed toying with his victims as much as possible. He was also eager to really let loose, as the necessity of containing himself around Kurama was driving him mad.

Kiriyama was one of those youkai with little youki who had compensated by mastering regular martial arts forms. He had an untidy shock of coarse, red hair which offended Karasu's sensibilities by its resemblance to Kurama's coloring. A lissome tail swished behind him as he crouched.

"Many people would pay to have their brothers knocked off," Karasu remarked, easily catching the pair of shuriken Kiriyama had just hurled at his chest. "Consider yourself lucky that you got it done free of charge."

He tossed a small grenade at Kiriyama's tail; Kiriyama howled as more than half of it was blown off. Karasu smiled. It was always so much more fun when they couldn't see his bombs.

"Bastards like you who have no one in the first place don't know what it feels like to lose somebody!"

For a second Kiriyama's ugly red hair morphed into Kurama's beautiful, long locks, and with a pang in his heart, Karasu thought of him, and others from a distant history. His philosophy of killing his loved ones before they grew weak and died _had_ sprung from a very real source in his past.

That second was all Kiriyama needed. He rushed forward, now wielding a twelve-inch kitchen knife. Karasu leapt backward, his panic out of proportion with what was actually happening, and set off all the Muddy Bombs he had planted. Kiriyama's blade grazed Karasu's shirt harmlessly as his feet and lower legs exploded. Unfortunately, Karasu had miscalculated his jump backwards and his left foot had also landed on one of his bombs.

"Die," he snarled, not wasting any more time. Immediately Kiriyama's chest burst open in a bloody explosion.

"Damn it," he said viciously, limping over Kiriyama's bleeding corpse and leaning on the railing over the stairs. He was, to a degree, immune to his own bombs, but his leg was still badly injured. By the feel of it, several bones in his foot had broken, and there were deep gashes in his calf.

Gritting his teeth, he staggered downstairs and out the front door. Cursing Kiriyama (and his own stupidity) on every step of the way, he dragged himself home, keeping to the shadows.

The deceased Kiriyama would never be able to tell anyone that he had discovered Karasu's greatest weakness—a weakness, which was, truthfully speaking, hidden in plain sight—Karasu was horribly sensitive to the suggestion of his past losses, and the prospect of future losses which his hand had not directly caused.

After all, it was he who had said, "No matter how much love you lavish on someone, they will grow old and die. In which case, I will kill them with my own hands."

--

A/N: I usually don't use Japanese words unless there really is no English equivalent. Karasu's "itte kimasu" literally means "I go and come back." It's used whenever someone leaves a place (usually home) with the intention of returning. So he's assuring Hiroshi that he will return, with Kurama in tow.

Ofuro—Ofuro are Japanese bathtubs, but they're not used for washing. They're more like indoor hot springs. All washing takes place outside the ofuro. The ofuro is used for communal bathing, which is common in Japan. It's a place to relax and chat.

Nightingale floors—Men who feared assassination by ninjas in feudal Japan really did put these into their houses.

Muddy Bomb—Karasu uses one in the anime, and it talks, too. In the American dub, he calls it his "mad bomb."

I was gratified by the positive response to Takeo and Takara in the last chapter, as I'm always a bit leery about introducing original characters in fic. And, um . . . lowers head bashfully more OCs are to come. ;; But I swear that the story will continue to center on Kurama, Karasu, Bui, and Hiei!

Whew, that was a long chapter!

P.S. For all you fellow Karasu fans on LJ (because surely you're not _all_ die-hard HxK shippers?), I made a Karasu colorbar! It's my first ever, and I'm rather proud of it. My username is the same on LJ, so go check it out if so inclined.


	6. The Floodgates Open

6. The Floodgates Open

--

While Karasu made his way home slowly, Kurama was bombarding Bui with questions as he ate.

"I still don't really understand why you have accompanied Karasu all these years."

"I would be faithless to abandon him now."

Seeing Kurama's nonplussed expression, he added wryly, "It's probably easier to tolerate his presence when he doesn't harbor unwanted sexual longings towards you."

Was that a joke? Kurama blinked, but plunged on.

"Why do you feel you must be faithful to him?"

"Is this an interrogation?" Bui asked lightly.

"No," said Kurama, trying to match Bui's levity. "Just an attempt at conversation."

"Hmm," Bui said; Kurama was relieved to hear the smile in his voice. He knew how bizarre their conversation would appear to outsiders; he himself could hardly believe they were speaking normally to each other. The partner-in-crime and the abducted victim chatting over breakfast.

"Karasu's personality is multi-faceted, like most everyone's. His interest in you places you in such a position that you can only see the worst sides of him."

"And you?"

"What about me?"

"What can you see from your position, and what places you there?"

"I see everything you cannot," said Bui, deftly evading the question. "And—"

He was interrupted by a staccato burst of knocks at the front door. He got up immediately to open it. Kurama could not see them, but he could hear low, urgent conversation. Bui did not talk to the visitor for long, however, and even though his features were unreadable as always when he reappeared, Kurama sensed that something worrisome had happened.

"What is it?"

"Nothing."

"'Nothing' usually means bad news."

"It is news that concerns no one but Karasu," Bui said sharply, all his former courtesy gone.

"I notice that didn't stop _you_ from hearing it."

Bui growled and pounded the table once in vexation. He turned and left, leaving Kurama to stare mutely at webs of cracks in the varnish of the splintered wooden tabletop, and wonder what had transpired to make Bui so upset, so quickly.

As Bui left the dining room, he heard several knocks at the door again. Fearing more bad news, he hurried over reluctantly. He was alarmed to find Karasu bleeding on the front step.

"You're injured!"

"It's annoying and rather painful, but it won't leave permanent damage. A moment's stupidity." Karasu's knees sagged.

Bui picked him up gently, cradling him in his arms, as opposed to flinging him over his shoulder as he had with Kurama. As Bui carried Karasu upstairs to his bedroom, Karasu asked if there had been any trouble while he had been away. He was referring to Kurama.

"Bad news," Bui said tersely. "Hiroshi-sama is dead."

_Hiroshi-sama. Dead._

The words echoed in Karasu's head, bouncing off the walls of his skull with the impact of runaway freight trains. He blinked, once. Bui could see he was shaken, though he refocused his stunned gaze with admirable celerity and managed one composed word.

"How?"

"He was murdered by someone who was good with a sword." Bui paused. "Very good."

He spared Karasu the details of how Hiroshi had been found in his bed, with obvious signs of torture upon his body. An enormous bruise on his forehead suggested that he had first been knocked unconscious. He had then been spread-eagled and bound to the bedposts with his own ripped sheets. His appendages were not found in restraints, however; the strips tied to the charred bedposts ended in empty loops stained with blood.

That was because the assailant had neatly sliced off Hiroshi's arms and legs in even segments, starting from the fingertips and toes and ending at the hips and shoulders, as if he had been chopping vegetables. Hiroshi's servants had found the round cross-sections of Hiroshi's arms and legs scattered around the blankets and on the floor, and the throat on his singed, limbless body had been viciously slashed open.

"He had a number of enemies," Karasu said slowly. "It was probably the Kyoushu. This is regrettable, but the Shikaku will find a new leader, and—"

His deceptively calm rationalizing was cut short, which was really for the best. If he had been allowed to continue pretending that the death of the closest thing he'd had as a father figure was merely a "regrettable" setback, he would have faltered, and perhaps even fallen apart. Karasu's breakdowns, which were rare but memorable occurrences, consisted of massive, uncontrollable explosions that generally neither he nor Bui found to be a pleasant experience.

As it was, Bui interrupted him in a low voice. "He had appointed Takeo as his successor in his will, and I do not think it was the Kyoushu."

"What do you mean?" Karasu's breathing was audibly labored, a sign that he was struggling to maintain self-control.

"Few youkai have such skill with the katana. And fewer still leave traces of fire behind them. We know someone who fulfills both criteria."

Karasu's face twisted in disgust. "What you're implying is ridiculous. Now put me on the bed; I need to rest."

Bui set him down wordlessly and undressed his injured leg. Karasu hissed with pain.

"Does Kurama know about this?"

"No."

"Good. Keep it that way. Where is he right now?"

"I left him in the dining room. You need a doctor," said Bui, probing at a ragged tear on Karasu's shin.

"A doctor," Karasu repeated scornfully. "Very well. Summon one. Don't let Kurama know the specifics. Just say I received a minor injury."

He watched Bui leave before squeezing his eyes shut painfully. Hiroshi had deserved better. And if Hiroshi's demise was indeed his fault, even Karasu would have trouble using his obsession with Kurama to justify the death.

As Bui walked downstairs to send a messenger, he encountered Kurama.

"Karasu's back?"

"Yes. He received a slight injury. I'm calling a doctor, as he needs to be in full health when we leave tomorrow."

"We're moving so quickly?" Kurama seemed more interested in the fact that they were leaving after only one night, rather than in the news of Karasu's wound.

"It is necessary. Don't disturb Karasu right now." And with those words, Bui strode down the hall.

Kurama wandered into the parlor and flopped down on an armchair, his brow furrowing. Foremost on his mind, as was always the case now, was the daring, but promising scheme of escape Youko had dreamt up. His hand often went up unconsciously to clutch at the bag of tear gems beneath his clothes.

Try as he might, he could not stopper the hole his three friends had left in his heart. His plotting did little to keep his grief for Yusuke and Kuwabara at bay; and even less to prevent worry for Hiei from overwhelming him regularly.

But Youko stepped in to help him during those times of despair.

--

Hiei, on the other hand, felt that he was doing just fine. Last night, when he had mercilessly turned Hiroshi into dim sum, his purpose had been to extract Karasu's hiding place. Hiroshi had taken the pain stoically in the beginning, but he eventually began to scream, and amongst those screams was a location.

"The Golden Pavilion!" he gasped. "It's—it's about thirty minutes from here!"

That had been all Hiei needed to hear. He said grimly, "Thanks," and slit Hiroshi's throat in one swift motion.

Unhappily, Hiroshi must have meant thirty minutes by walking, because Hiei had scoured the entire area within thirty minutes of a carriage, and had found nothing. It had taken a long time, too, as he carefully examined practically every square inch for cleverly hidden buildings, or edifices concealed by illusions maintained by youki.

It was late morning when he began moving outside the circle of thirty minutes' carriage ride, and almost noon when he found the Golden Pavilion at last.

Standing outside and gazing at the eagle-shaped door knockers, he suddenly felt a whiff of familiar ki . . . the stranger he'd encountered yesterday!

Well, whoever he was, he stubbornly remained out of sight, and Hiei knew that rescuing Kurama was a much higher priority than finding out who was following him . . . although that was certainly very important too. He grunted. He'd save it for after he killed Karasu and Bui.

He didn't detect any of their ki around this house, but the house's wards were so intricate that he didn't find it surprising. He hadn't been able to sense any ki within five hundred feet of Hiroshi's manor, either.

He slipped in past the wards skillfully, and evaded the notice of the bodyguards, like he'd done at Hiroshi's, and entered the house.

Hiroshi had not sent Hiei after Takeo and Takara maliciously. It was simply that as Takeo was the new head of the Shikaku, Hiroshi had thought it would be fitting for him to kill the one who had murdered his predecessor. Hiroshi really did have tremendous faith in his hit men. He could not have foreseen that Hiei would dispatch Takeo and Takara even more brutally, in his anger at having been directed to the wrong house.

"Where is he?" he asked in a low voice. "I don't want to keep asking. You're running out of body parts."

He had already hacked off quite a few in rage when he'd found out about Kurama's sealing.

Takeo gurgled indistinctly. Hiei turned towards him. Afraid that Takeo would give Karasu away, Takara blurted out, under the pretense that she was frightened for her father's life, "I'll tell you where he is!"

"It's a little late for you to finally start cooperating," Hiei sneered, "but go on."

"You'll find him at a manor called Rippa Kyassuru. You'll know it by its gilt double doors. It's fifty miles from here . . ."

"Are you sure?" Hiei demanded. "I've already been led astray once."

Takara nodded frantically, blood streaming down her cheeks from her ruined eyes. "Please don't kill us!"

"Yes . . . I should leave you here alive so I can come back and talk with you further if you're lying," Hiei said contemptuously. Takara let out a low cry of despair. "But I'm afraid I can't leave any witnesses."

Karasu's name was on Takara's lips as her breath ebbed away. Takeo did not do much more than gurgle in the last seconds of his life.

When Hiei went outside, he saw someone dart into the trees. Damn this forest! Hiei darted after him, determined this time to catch him.

The other was quick, but not as fast as Hiei, and Hiei stretched out a hand to grab him by the collar, pulling out his katana with his other hand.

"Who are you and why have you been following me?" Hiei demanded, turning him around.

"Following you?" panted the other. "It seems like you've been following me!"

He was a pale youkai with a haughty nose. His green eyes were disturbingly bright, but other than that, he looked quite human. He wore white and gold clothing cut loosely to allow for ease of movement, with an opening in the back for a tail that swayed almost hypnotically.

"Explain yourself," Hiei growled. "I'm in a bad mood right now, so don't test me."

"My name is Matsuoka," he said, pulling himself proudly out of Hiei's grasp. "I am the current heir of the Sawashima clan, and I'm tracking a member of the Shikaku named Karasu who killed my brother Kiriyama. The Shikaku killed my elder brother Kazuo recently. Kiriyama raised hell about it, and Karasu was sent to silence him."

A dangerous gleam flashed through his eyes like light hitting the edge of a falling coin. He licked his lips, either in apprehension or anticipation; perhaps both.

"I am now," he said deliberately, "_quite_ interested in returning the favor. It would seem that you are pursuing the same end."

"What's the Shikaku?" Hiei asked brusquely, not lowering his katana.

Matsuoka's lip curled. "You don't know? Funny . . . because you killed its leader last night."

"Don't give me any bullshit," Hiei snarled, "or I'll kill you too."

"I'd like to see you try," scoffed Matsuoka. However, the fact that Hiei had now cruelly murdered three people in his search led him to answer. "The Shikaku are an organization of highly trained assassins. Now, who are you and why are _you_ stalking Karasu?"

"My name is Hiei. Like you, I want revenge," Hiei said curtly.

Matsuoka regarded him appraisingly. "Since we have the same goal . . . we might pool our abilities and capture Karasu together."

"I prefer to work alone," said Hiei, who also didn't like Matsuoka's attitude.

"Very well," said Matsuoka coldly, reverting to his arrogant demeanor.

"I won't interfere with you, and I don't want to see you around any more. I want to deal with Karasu personally." Hiei was baring his teeth at the mere thought, though he didn't even realize it..

"I understand. We'll just have to see, then, who catches up to him first. Good luck, Hiei," sneered Matsuoka, using his old trick of disappearing into the nearby flora.

Hiei snorted and hastened on his way without looking back, though he did have the feeling he would see Matsuoka again.

Anxiety bordering on anguish lent speed to Hiei's steps as his imagination writhed out of control like one of Kurama's monstrous vines. He hated to consider it, but he believed that Karasu had probably lost no time in ravishing Kurama and generally debasing or mutilating him in every way his sick mind could dream up. Only the idea of tearing Karasu up in revenge kept Hiei from frothing at the mouth.

Hiei wasn't lucid enough to realize that he was worrying over Kurama to an excessive degree usually found only in mothers and lovers. In fact, his fears were thus far unfounded as Karasu had hardly laid a hand on Kurama. But Hiei's longstanding regard of Kurama had subtly morphed into something deeper than respect, or even friendship—without him noticing.

Since a great part of his new feelings toward Kurama sprang from serious respect of his paradoxically human, yet often breathtakingly _merciless_ character, it might be curious that Hiei had been so worried about someone he knew to be a ruthless son-of-a-bitch at bottom. Kurama himself would have expected Hiei to assume that he was capable of taking care of himself. And now that he knew about the sealing, it was only natural that his already high-strung emotions would go into overdrive.

He had also already seen Karasu's gleeful, near-successful attempt to kill Kurama with agonizing precision and leisurely pace; and his ire had further been roused by the crow youkai's smug requisition for Kurama as his prize. Really, Hiei was mad not only with worry, but also jealousy.

Rippa Kyassuru was another well-hidden, highly protected mansion. As before, nothing stopped Hiei from getting inside. Once inside, however, he found no sign of Kurama, Karasu, or Bui.

"Who are you?" demanded a hulking, bovine guard as Hiei rounded a corner.

"I'm here to see your master," Hiei said smoothly.

"What business do you have with the boss?"

"That's none of your concern."

"Isn't it?" Attracted by the commotion, other guards began circling around, grinning. "What do you say, boys?"

Hiei killed all of them in less than fifteen seconds.

"Looks like I'll have to find him myself." Hiei walked into the bowels of the house, wiping his katana as he went.

Much to his rage, the youkai he found—Akuma—had nothing to do with Karasu. Well, unless you counted the fact that he was head of the Kyoushu, rival organization of the Shikaku. Obviously, then, he had no idea where to find Karasu.

"I can help you, though!" he babbled, clutching at the hem of Hiei's cloak. "I can give you spies that will stay on lookout, day and night, and inquire after his whereabouts! I can give you an entire army! Please don't hurt me!"

"If your spies are as good as your bodyguards, no thanks," sneered Hiei, decapitating Akuma as blinding fury swept over him. Three dead ends and no leads!

"You damn well should be doing better than I am, Kurama," Hiei muttered, stalking out of Rippa Kyassuru. He had sustained minor injuries before subduing Akuma, though any pain he might have felt was dulled considerably by his frustration and fierce determination.

--

Kurama was now in fact doing rather well, though Karasu was not.

That afternoon, the doctor finally left after binding up his leg and setting the bones in his foot.

"The doctor has said that I must stay in bed for three more days before attempting to walk. And he doesn't want me to travel until I can walk 'reasonably well.'" Karasu scowled.

"Then rest," Bui said swiftly. "I'm afraid I have more bad news."

"I thought I heard a messenger at the door," Karasu said darkly. "What is it?"

"Takeo and Takara are dead."

Karasu's lips parted under his mask, forming a shocked "O"; he was glad Bui could not see. As annoying as her passionate loyalty to him had been, it had also been occasionally endearing. And he _had_ seen the parallel between her unrequited affection for him and his feelings towards Kurama.

If he'd known what she'd suffered for his sake, and that she had lied to save him, he would have been even more disturbed.

At any rate, this blow, right after the news of Hiroshi's death, was almost enough to make Karasu reconsider the high price of Kurama's unwilling companionship. But, he reflected with melancholic irony, the key word there was _almost_. He stubbornly refused to acknowledge any such foolish feeling as regret.

As for Takara's father . . . while Karasu hadn't felt any great love for Takeo, Takeo had been Hiroshi-sama's designated successor. The Shikaku would fall into confusion as the assassins in the higher echelons grappled for the empty head position.

Karasu himself had no intention of wrangling for the top spot (though he would have been more than qualified), and he doubted that anyone had been informed of his return outside of Hiroshi and Takeo. He would just have to lie low during the power struggle and finish his business—getting Kurama to Nekura—in the meantime. Still, this chain of deaths was hard to ignore. Bui was looking at him pointedly, as if to say that his suspicions had been confirmed. But that was ludicrous . . . there was no way . . .

"They were found much like Hiroshi-sama. Mutilated by a skilled swordsman."

"The Kyoushu must be feeling feisty."

"No. Akuma and the majority of his household have also been murdered. The handiwork was the same."

". . . The attacker did all of this in broad daylight?" Karasu felt as though he had swallowed a column of ice.

"He behaves as if he has nothing to lose." A pause. "We must be careful."

"No! This is absurd. We have no reason to believe he is after us. We don't know who he is."

"You know it must be _him_," Bui said fiercely, no longer able to contain his frustration at Karasu's stubbornness.

"You're over-analyzing, Bui. Don't be so paranoid. He's dead." Karasu waved him away exasperatedly.

"All the same, we must leave as soon as we can!"

"Go—go see what Kurama's doing. Get out of here." Karasu held his breath involuntarily; it was not often that they argued. He couldn't remember the last time Bui had raised his voice against him.

But Bui exited obediently, if sullenly. As he went, he murmured, "Your precious liability." Karasu pretended not to hear.

It surprised many people how softly Bui could tread, even in full armor. His feet sank noiselessly into the plush carpet of the parlor, where Kurama was sitting on an armchair. Because Kurama's gaze was fixed intently on a vase of flowers in the corner, Bui was able to steal up on him.

He soon saw the reason for Kurama's rapture: the flowers inside were blooming and closing languidly, like pink and yellow fireworks on stems. The realization blossomed on Bui like the chrysanthemums in the vase—the seals on Kurama's ki were wearing off now that Takara was dead. Today, chrysanthemums; tomorrow, Makai no Ojigisou. Karasu had better find another sealer, and soon.

Kurama noticed the shadow Bui threw over the vase and spun around.

_Serves me right for being so reckless._

Nevertheless, he stared at Bui defiantly. He was not yet able to use his ki to attack, so all he could do was wait for Bui to make the first move. His plan for escape had been set in motion when he'd discovered his ki was beginning to return; if Bui reported back to Karasu, he'd have to change it drastically.

Bui turned to leave towards the front door.

Kurama's eyebrows contracted in bewilderment. "You're going to tell him, aren't you?" he demanded.

"He'll find out for himself if you continue in this careless fashion. Don't let me catch you doing it again."

"Why?" Kurama knew Bui knew what he meant.

Bui paused before replying. "Karasu has become careless as well. A rude awakening would not be out of order."

Kurama gazed after him, still baffled. The flowers in the vase continued to open and close, like exploding stars in the sunlight.

--

A/N: This chapter was a bitch, and I'm getting slightly nervous now that the updates are progressing steadily while the ending of this story is not. I've been stuck on chapter 10 for several weeks now. Wish me luck. --;;

Makai no Ojigisou—the huge plant sensitive to heat and touch that Youko used against Karasu during their match.


	7. A Chance Encounter

7. A Chance Encounter

--

During the next three days Karasu spent confined to his bed, Bui took charge of the house, caring for both him and Kurama. Kurama continued to practice using his slowly returning ki with the utmost discretion.

Although he was not allowed to enter the courtyard, where he would have greater freedom in exercising his returning powers (were they afraid he was going to leap over the walls?), Kurama had to be content with his circumstances. He suspected that Bui was avoiding him, in order to steer clear of catching him in the act again, and gratitude welled up in Kurama's heart towards him.

He had figured out what the restoration of his powers signified: Takara was dead. Bui had seen him manipulating the chrysanthemums, so he must also know about it. In fact, Kurama suspected Bui and Karasu were better informed about it than he was, though they had not said a word to him.

Now that Kurama thought about it, he remembered that _two_ different messengers had knocked on the gates. But the seals on his ki had not begun to wear off until after the second one. What news had the first messenger borne? Were these two incidents linked? A small voice inside him whispered _Hiei_, and hope stretched its fledgling wings in his chest.

Karasu, on the other hand, should have been worried. He had realized what Takara's death meant, but not to what extent.

"Another sealer must be found. A week or two and Kurama will regain use of his youki."

Bui was unsure why Karasu's estimate was so far off the mark. Surely he did not underestimate the kitsune after the unexpected outcome of their match? He was not going to correct Karasu, but if asked directly, Bui would find himself unable to lie.

However, Karasu continued with, "I need you to go to the marketplace and ask around."

"And leave you alone with Kurama?"

"It's not as if he's going to break out by himself—or attack me, if that's what you're afraid of. For all his ki is worth now, he could hardly cross-pollinate a dandelion."

Bui knew Karasu's information on Kurama's powers was woefully out of date, but he himself had no idea how far Kurama had progressed. He therefore had cause to worry.

"In fact," Karasu continued, "I want him in here right now. Tell him to come here before you leave."

After all he had gone through to secure the kitsune by his side, and after so many had paid for him with their lives, Karasu rather thought he deserved to spend more quality time with Kurama. He also hoped to banish the lingering unease he still felt over Hiroshi and Takara with the soothing quality of Kurama's delicate beauty.

Bui found Kurama reading in the manor's small library. When he was not working with his newly freed ki, he was reading. What he was reading, Bui didn't want to know. Books could be dangerous. Though, Bui did know Karasu knew Kurama had access to his books.

It was a curious contrast: Bui closed his eyes to many aspects of Kurama, while Karasu was insatiable.

Bui's worry was unfounded. Kurama was researching ki-sealing, but the books contained little that he didn't know from firsthand experience. He looked up as Bui approached.

"I'm going out for a while," Bui told Kurama. "Karasu wants to talk to you while I'm away. I am warning you not to try anything. No matter how much your ki may have progressed these few days, Karasu can still crush you easily despite his injury."

"All right," said Kurama blandly.

Bui scrutinized his face before leaving, cursing the features that had beguiled Karasu, yet unable to hate their owner.

Upstairs, Karasu smiled as he heard Kurama's noisy approach. Even if he'd had enough ki to silence the nightingale floors, Kurama wouldn't have done it. He wanted to conceal his powers until he was fully in a position to challenge Karasu.

"You wanted to see me?" Kurama lingered in the doorframe. Karasu was seated in a chair in front of the dresser, so he was apparently no longer bedridden.

"Come in," Karasu said, still smiling.

Kurama hadn't been sharing a bed with Karasu the past few nights, sleeping instead in a guest room, which he vastly preferred. He assumed it was because they feared he might attack the wounded Karasu in the night. Thus, he hadn't entered Karasu's room at all. He did so now cautiously. He studied Karasu for any sign of injury, but he seemed perfectly sound.

"Do you remember the first time we met?" Karasu asked, his eyes flashing with the fond memory. "I told you to take better care of your hair."

"I haven't forgotten." Kurama looked coldly down at Karasu from where he stood.

"Take a seat." Karasu gestured at the stool between himself and the dresser. "I've wanted to do this for a while, but never had a chance to. It's time I took your hair in hand."

When Kurama did not immediately comply, Karasu added shrewdly, "I'm not angling for an opportunity to force myself on you, because if I wanted to, I would do it without preamble. Sit down."

Kurama found it difficult to argue with his logic, and he was undesirous of provoking Karasu at this critical juncture, now that his ki was returning and a door to escape was opening to him. He swallowed his pride and sat on the stool, staring stubbornly at himself in the mirror. He refused to meet Karasu's reflected gaze.

"If Bui does his job correctly, you'll be going to see someone this afternoon," Karasu said pleasantly, placing his hands on either side of Kurama's head and sweeping all his hair behind his shoulders.

"Who?"

"It's a surprise." Karasu leaned over and unlatched a large chest on the dresser, pulling out a hairbrush. He ran it gently but firmly through Kurama's hair, so that the bristles traced pleasurable trails down his scalp.

Kurama shuddered like a horse at the tingling sensation, and fought down the urge to jump up and strangle Karasu. It disgusted him that Karasu's touch felt_ good, _that he was letting Karasu touch him at all.

"And then we'll leave early tomorrow morning." Karasu leaned in and whispered, "Pity I didn't get to enjoy the ofuro with you. Some other time, perhaps?"

He was so close that his hot breath filtered through his mask and tickled the shell of Kurama's ear. Kurama could not contain himself, and jerked forward. Karasu's hands immediately gripped his upper arms, pulling him back into place.

"We're in a hurry right now," he said, now uncorking a vial of jasmine-scented oil. "But after we see Nekura, we'll have all the time in the world."

The gleeful, sing-song quality of Karasu's voice made Kurama sick, but he took deep breaths and bore it.

"This oil will moisturize your hair and keep it glossy," murmured Karasu, running his fingers through the tousled tresses languidly. "I'm going to braid your hair."

Kurama had a sudden vision of himself wearing plaited pigtails, and scowled. Karasu saw it in the mirror and chuckled.

"Trust me. You will look very fetching."

If anything, Kurama's scowl became more pronounced.

"_You_ don't braid your hair. You don't do anything with your own hair."

Karasu tossed his head, smiling. His black hair rippled behind him like running water. "I get along quite well with a . . . natural look. But your beauty, Kurama, needs to be celebrated and . . . shouted in the streets. Your fragile elegance needs to be pampered and petted."

With the end of this discourse, Karasu resumed his work on Kurama's hair.

"Ouch!" Kurama snapped as Karasu's fingers wove in and out deftly.

"Stay still," Karasu murmured, yanking on the strands of hair in his hands to reposition Kurama's head. Kurama's eyes watered up with the pain, which seemed to please Karasu. "I need to pull your hair tightly in order to braid it properly."

Actually, he did not handle Kurama's hair as cruelly as he might have. On the whole, he was surprisingly gentle. Still, Kurama longed to be free from his attentions. This forcible binding of his hair paralleled his own bondage to Karasu too closely, and it the knowledge gnawed at him painfully.

After Karasu had woven a cream-colored ribbon into the first small braid, he began working on the other side of Kurama's head.

"What have you been doing these past few days? I'm sorry you were left to your own devices for so long."

Kurama had been planning his rebellion against Karasu, but he wasn't about to tell that to his face. His plan, which had originally been no more specific than simply getting his hands on a Fruit of Past Life to regain his Youko form, had become easier once his seals had started to crack. Now he could "sniff" them out with his returning ki, or even force a barren tree to bear fruit once his powers were sufficiently restored. All he needed was a little more time for the seals to deteriorate even further.

"I can take care of myself," Kurama spat.

"Of course you can . . . I was merely worried that you would be bored."

"I'm fine!"

Karasu laughed softly. "Did you spend the entire time dreaming up plots of revenge? The way you look at me tells me you're itching to place your hands around my neck. Not," he added, his fingers slipping from Kurama's hair to caress the tender skin of his throat, "that I don't always feel like doing the same to you."

Kurama broke free from his grotesque caress, though Karasu restrained him again.

"I know what it's like to be consumed by thoughts of vengeance," Karasu said quietly, continuing his work on Kurama's hair. He could feel Kurama shaking with outrage beneath him.

"Bui and I still dream of killing the Toguro brothers. But," he said, brightening (or as much as such a verb could be used to describe Karasu), "first things first, hm? I can seek revenge on the Toguros after I make you entirely _mine_."

--

The marketplace was a site of perpetual motion and transaction, and a feast for the senses. Under striped awnings, tireless hawkers cried their prices and extolled the virtues of their goods. The heady fragrance of ripe melons mingled with the cutting perfumes of Makai spices; cloth vendors laid out heavy gold brocade and pastel silks to dazzle the eye.

"Two ounces of gold for a bolt of linen!"

"Five silver pieces for all the crystallized ginger your bag can hold! Special today!"

"Fresh fish! Fresh fish!"

Bui walked forward resolutely, ignoring the beckoning salesmen and their seductive wares. Services of all types were sold in the back, behind the goods. Once past the last of the butchers' and bakers' stalls, he began to see groups of prostitutes, winking at him coyly; brawny youkai whose signs proclaimed "Bodyguards for hire;" and a large tent painted with the innocuous words "Fortune-telling: Palmistry and Orb Gazing," but which Bui knew to contain an office of the Shikaku.

At last, he stopped at a dingy booth in a corner and addressed the elderly, hunchbacked youkai manning it.

"I need someone who can seal youki into a person's body and render them completely powerless."

"Like that Shikaku girl what was murdered days ago?" asked the old youkai shrewdly.

"Yes, like that."

"My girl that done it packed up and left after she heard. She warn't going to stay much longer after that. Thought he might be targeting all sealers."

Bui made an exasperated sound. Jingling his money pouch subtly for effect, he asked, "Do you know anyone around here who has the ability?"

The other shook his head emphatically. "Kiyoka were the only one in the marketplace. Yeh'd have to go out of town."

"Give me some names, old man," said Bui, his patience beginning to wear thin.

The hunchback eyed his money pouch greedily. "Well, I do know a few . . ."

"Direct me to people who live on the road to Mokuzai. That's in my way."

"Going somewhere, eh? Well, I don't know of anyone on the road, but Nekura, who lives _in_ Mokuzai, could do it for yeh."

Bui frowned. He hadn't been aware that Nekura, who specialized in esoteric poisons, was also a sealer. And Nekura was still far away . . .

"Here," he said brusquely, throwing a few coins on the counter.

As he walked away, preoccupied with their current problem, he became aware of a scuffle that was taking place ahead of him.

"I don't want to have to ask you again," someone said in a soft, ominous voice that carried far in the sudden silence that had fallen.

"I—I can't afford to give handouts, sir! I'm just a poor vendor!"

The left partition of his stall collapsed with a resounding crash as the aggressor overturned the cart with a sweep of his katana. Boiled eggs began rolling all over the ground.

"Poorer now, I'll bet," he sneered. "Though you've still got enough to feed me. But . . ." he turned contemplatively to the other cart, which contained piles of roasted fowl tied by their feet. "Will you?"

The beleaguered vendor had no choice but to acquiesce. "Please, d-don't!" he stammered, wringing his hands pleadingly. "Go ahead and help yourself!"

A crowd was gathering around them, looking upon the proceedings with sadistic interest. Bui's attention, however, was captured by the vendor's would-be "customer." That diminutive height . . . that black cloak . . . that bandaged right arm!

_It was Hiei._

Bui turned immediately and hurried out of the marketplace back to Karasu. As he hastened up the stairs in the house, he felt sweat trickling down his neck. But how much more nervous he would have been if he had seen Hiei after he had secured his meal . . .

Hiei turned, eating the vendor's offerings contentedly. As he stalked off, he felt a trace of familiar ki. In fact, it was ki which he could positively identify as Bui's. He smiled grimly and prepared to recommence his hunt.

--

Kurama and Karasu looked up in surprise as Bui burst into the room. If Bui hadn't been so worried, he would have laughed at Kurama's new hairstyle. Two locks of hair on either side of his head had been plaited and then all four braids had been gathered and bound together in the back. He looked ridiculously pretty, like a fairy princess in a storybook. But Bui wasn't in the mood for laughter.

"Get out," Bui said to Kurama.

Karasu ran a hand lazily through Kurama's braided hair one last time before pushing him gently in the small of his back, saying, "Go on. Bui seems agitated."

Bui watched stiffly as Kurama creaked out of the room, making sure the sounds of his noisy footsteps had receded far away before speaking.

"I saw him in the marketplace."

Karasu stiffened. "Who?" he asked in a forced, casual tone.

"You know perfectly well who," Bui hissed, in no mood to play Karasu's games any more.

Karasu's face darkened. "Did he see you?"

"I don't know. Maybe."

"We must leave immediately." Karasu narrowed his eyes. "Did you find a sealer?"

"No, but I have been told that Nekura is one."

Karasu raised his eyebrows at this revelation, but did not comment. "Pack the things we will need. I want to leave in an hour."

"So quickly? You are still injured."

"_He_ will move quickly."

"Karasu . . ." Karasu looked at Bui sharply. "We could get rid of him by leaving K—,"

"_No_. How dare you even suggest it? Kurama is _mine._" Karasu's naturally pale complexion turned bone-white with anger, and his eyes were little more than slits.

"Hiei only chases us because of him," said Bui, saying Hiei's name out loud for the first time.

"We can get rid of the Jaganshi more . . . permanently."

"_If_ we can," Bui muttered.

Hiei knew a few sword tricks and he could play with fire, but he'd lost to Bui at the Dark Tournament. Karasu was not impressed, and he did not see why Bui should speak so fearfully.

"Go pack. Inform Kurama as well," he said, dismissing him brusquely. "We can orchestrate Hiei's death later."

Bui obeyed silently, though resentment and fear simmered tangibly in his wake. As Karasu watched him go, his anger gave way to a tinge of sadness. Bui had been his faithful companion for years, and Kurama was driving a wedge between them. If push came to shove, Karasu wondered, which would he choose? He frowned. It was a decision he'd rather not have to make.

Bui ran into Kurama as he was carrying two suitcases to bring upstairs.

"What's going on?" Kurama demanded.

"We're leaving," Bui said shortly.

"_Now_?"

"Yes. If there's anything you'd like to bring, give it to me."

Kurama shook his head. "Why are we leaving on such short notice?"

"Emergency," grunted Bui, heading up the staircase.

As Kurama stood there staring up at him, however, he got his answer. He could faintly detect traces of a familiar ki on Bui's person . . . No wonder Bui was so upset.

A smile broke over his face like the sun emerging from a cloudbank.

"Do you trust me?" Hiei had asked.

_Of course, Hiei. Always._

--

A/N: This was another difficult chapter, but at least the next chapter promises to be much less daunting. And I've changed the story rating to M, as mature content shows up in a couple of chapters, and I want to warn readers well in advance.


	8. Progress

8. Progress

--

Even though Kurama now had solid evidence that Hiei was on their track, he couldn't afford to sit back and leave all the work to the Jaganshi at this crucial stage.

His powers had progressed to the point where he was able to materialize his ki to form seeds. He couldn't produce anything deadly like shimaneki-sou, not yet; just harmless garden-variety flowers. But even harmless garden plants have their uses.

As Karasu and Bui were loading everything into the carriage, Kurama bent down and planted a Makai strawberry seed firmly in the earth in front of the gates.

Like normal strawberries, Makai strawberries reproduced when a mother plant sent out runners from its base. The runners grew along the ground horizontally, sending forth roots at intervals. At the points where the runners took root, new plants grew.

The only ways in which Makai strawberries differed from their Ningenkai counterparts was that their fruit grew to monstrous sizes and their runner systems could extend for miles. Kurama intended to make this particular strawberry plant's runners follow wherever Karasu and Bui took him, so Hiei would have a guide in his pursuit of them.

"Kurama," Karasu called. Bui had already mounted the driver's seat and held the horses' reins.

"Coming," muttered Kurama. He sent a burst of ki into the buried seed, and was rewarded with the faint sounds of new roots expanding rapidly into the moist dirt.

"Let's go," he said as Karasu held the door open for him. If it weren't too bizarre, Karasu would have fancied that he saw a flash of triumph in Kurama's eyes as he climbed in.

When Hiei arrived ten minutes later, he found the house deserted, which he had expected. Before they'd left, Karasu and Bui had taken pains to shield the carriage so that they would not leave their ki signatures trailing after them. Neither had they left any physical tracks. Hiei did not find that surprising, but it certainly frustrated his plans. He wandered outside the gates, thinking of different ways to pursue them.

It was then that he saw the newly grown strawberry plant.

"Hn." He bent down. It reeked of Kurama's ki. Even as he watched, a runner stretched from the base of the plant and began growing tentatively in the direction the carriage had gone. Hiei smirked.

"Faster, plant."

--

In the carriage, Kurama panicked and scooted away from Karasu when he coyly trailed his fingers across Kurama's thigh. Eager to start a conversation to distract Karasu, he opened his mouth and let the foremost question on his mind tumble out: "What kind of emergency forced us to leave in such a hurry?"

Karasu withdrew his teasing hand and brushed his hair back thoughtfully.

"Bui didn't tell you?"

"He never tells me anything!"

"Bui's always so careful," Karasu murmured, more to himself than to Kurama. "Well, it doesn't matter now, as you'll learn the truth later sooner or later."

Kurama leaned in despite himself, listening intently.

"Your friend the Jaganshi has apparently survived. He's hot on our trail right now. I suppose he's come to take you back, even though you are now rightfully mine. He's killed many people in the course of his search."

"Who?"

"Anyone standing in his way, from the looks of it."

"But what happened just now to prompt our hasty departure?"

"Bui saw him in the marketplace."

Karasu smiled at the fierce look of joy on Kurama's face. "Don't think that it will be easy getting away from me simply because Hiei is after you. Bui and I should be able to dispatch him effortlessly if he catches up to us."

_Not if I'm helping him_, Kurama retorted mentally. Aloud, he asked, "So where are we going?"

"North. To Nekura," Karasu clarified, "who is expecting us. It will take a couple of weeks for us to arrive in Mokuzai, however."

A couple of weeks. That ought to be plenty of time for Hiei to catch up. Kurama prayed he would hurry; he knew that whatever Karasu intended Nekura to do to him was going to be far more permanent than the seals Takara had placed upon him.

"Who were you going to take me to see this afternoon?"

Karasu's face clouded. "I had wanted to go as soon as possible, but Bui has told me that we must wait until we arrive in Mokuzai."

Kurama pursed his lips as he tried to puzzle out the meaning of that. He was rudely interrupted by a sharp jab in the crook of his arm.

"Not again . . ." he said faintly, watching Karasu withdraw the needle.

"It has to be done," Karasu said by way of cheerful apology. "I don't like it when you ask too many questions, Kurama. And now you can't shy from my touch."

The last thing Kurama felt before falling unconscious was Karasu's long fingers stroking his face.

--

Hiei was losing ground on them. The strawberry runners inched forward at a rate that was incredible to watch, but they still failed to match the speed of Karasu's black horses. Hiei followed at a pace he considered painstakingly slow until nightfall, although that might not have been such a bad thing, as he still needed to recuperate from the minor injuries he had received at Akuma's hands.

Since he also hadn't slept for several days now, he thought, _I might as well get some rest and let the damned plant get ahead so I can follow it tomorrow._

He ate a small dinner of bread and preserved meat that he had gotten off the terrified vendor from before, and stretched out under the trees to sleep, keeping his katana close at hand.

While he slept, he had a dream. Or perhaps "nightmare" would have been the more accurate term: Kazuma Kuwabara was walking towards him and emitting an ethereal golden glow.

"You!" Hiei exclaimed. He jumped visibly in the dream, and even his sleeping face twitched unpleasantly. "What are you doing here?"

"Hey," Kuwabara smirked. "You should be on your knees begging for my forgiveness. Don't you feel guilty for just sitting around and watching me die?"

"Hn. I might have been able to save your life if you'd listened to me instead of bawling your eyes out over Yusuke. I should have left you to rot in the incinerator."

"Why, you . . ." Kuwabara took a few menacing steps forward.

"Speaking of which, where is Yusuke?" Hiei interrupted coldly.

"He got to go hang out in Kurama's dreams," Kuwabara said sullenly.

Hiei's ears instantly pricked up. "Where is Kurama right now? How is he?"

"Yeah, about that . . ."

Hiei was unnerved to see a grin unfolding itself across Kuwabara's face.

"You're both really good at hiding your feelings, aren't you? Me and Yusuke never would have guessed that you and Kurama—I mean, I thought Kurama had better taste."

Hiei's hand went to his side, but his katana wasn't there in the dream. "Shut. Up."

Kuwabara was gratified to see Hiei's flush of embarrassment and the throbbing vein at his temple.

"Or what? You'll kill me?" Kuwabara laughed unrestrainedly. "Anyway," he continued, "I'm supposed to tell you that Kurama thinks about you _all_ the time, and Karasu is taking him to see some poison specialist named Nekura."

"A poison specialist? Why?"

"I think Nekura has some kind of drug or something that will turn Kurama into Karasu's slave." The grin slid off Kuwabara's face. "You better catch up to them in time."

"Wait—can you or Yusuke come to me every night to keep me updated on their movements?" Hiei could not believe he was asking Kuwabara to visit his dreams on a regular basis, but there it was.

The humor of the request was not lost on Kuwabara. _Ah, the sacrifices you make for love_, he thought smugly.

He shook his head. "We can watch you guys from Reikai, but we're not really supposed to contact you. This is an exception. Koenma says we can't disturb the natural order of things too much. Or something like that."

"Fine."

There was a moment of silence, broken by Kuwabara clearing his throat gruffly. "Hey, um . . . I just wanted to say . . ."

Hiei looked at him curiously. "What?"

"It was pretty decent of you, uh, what you did for me." Kuwabara stumbled over his words.

Hiei blinked, feeling equally uncomfortable.

"Yeah," he agreed awkwardly.

They stared at each other in silence for another moment.

"When you get back—can you, um, tell Yukina that I miss her?" Kuwabara ventured, eyeing him nervously. The unspoken _your sister_ hung in the air between them.

Hiei's jaw clenched briefly, but realized that he wasn't as dismayed about the fact that Kuwabara knew as he might have been.

Really, he reflected, he had already admitted to himself that Kuwabara would have been good for Yukina. And for the first time, he felt a real pang of regret that Kuwabara would not be around to watch over Yukina in Ningenkai when he, Hiei, could not.

"Hn." Hiei nodded curtly in assent. Kuwabara's face broke out in a shaky, relieved grin.

"I think she misses you as well," Hiei continued. Then, almost as if disgusted with the sentimental turn the conversation , he added cuttingly, "Though I personally wouldn't understand why."

Kuwabara grinned even more widely, taking no offense.

"Hey, you're not that bad of a guy," he said, stepping forward and offering his hand to Hiei. "Kick Karasu's ass, you hear?"

Hiei hesitated, but only for a second, and accepted Kuwabara's outstretched hand. He smirked.

"Can do."

Meanwhile, Karasu injected Kurama with another round of tranquilizers, saying to Bui, "It'll be better if he sleeps until we're in the carriage again tomorrow. He can eat there."

He put Kurama into a sleeping bag under a tent they had erected, and after eating, slid in with him. Karasu brushed his sensitive fingertips across the broad plains of Kurama's high cheekbones, down to where his nails snagged sensually across Kurama's lips. He passed his hands down Kurama's ribs and rested them tenderly on his hips.

Beneath the sadist and contract killer, Karasu was an aesthete at heart. He longed to pluck the bud of Kurama's beauty and pin it to his collar, but he realized that doing so too soon would ruin everything. Karasu therefore withdrew his hands slowly, and resolved to be patient a little longer. Just until they reached Nekura . . .

As Karasu struggled internally, Kurama was dreaming.

"Yusuke!"

"Hey, Kurama." Yusuke grinned at him, though there was a touch of melancholy in his expression. "Koenma can't resurrect me again—at least, not yet—but he let me have this one meeting with you. How are you?"

"Fi—," Kurama started to say untruthfully. He settled for the more honest answer, "Not as bad as I could be. What about you and Kuwabara?"

"Kuwabara's okay. He's with Hiei right now, but he says hi."

"What about you?"

"I'm fine," Yusuke lied. Kurama raised his eyebrows.

"Okay, maybe not," he admitted grudgingly.

"None of it was your fault," Kurama said swiftly.

"Oh yeah? Then whose fault was it?" Yusuke challenged him.

"You could blame it all on me," Kurama offered.

Yusuke laughed weakly. "Thanks, but I have to point out that you're the only one I _can't_ blame, seeing how you're the only one who won a match."

Kurama shrugged. "I'm sure the great delinquent Yusuke Urameshi wouldn't ever let something as petty as technical details get in his way."

Yusuke grinned. "You seem be taking everything much better than Hiei is."

"What about Hiei?" demanded Kurama, who had perked up immediately at his name. "How is he doing?"

"Hmm . . ." A crafty look crept over Yusuke's features. "Well, the way he crushes on you is _sooo_ cute." He puckered his lips mockingly, then dissolved into laughter.

Kurama almost choked on his own saliva. "What?"

"Don't worry," Yusuke said evilly. "Everyone knows. That's the great thing about twenty-four-hour surveillance."

"No—I never—," Kurama stammered.

"Hey, it's not like we disapprove. Better than Karasu, for one thing."

"There is nothing between Hiei and me!"

Kurama's words were truthful, though he might have been more accurate to tack on "yet" to the end of his sentence.

Hiei hadn't bothered to deny Kuwabara's insinuations as Kurama was now vigorously doing with Yusuke. This was partly because Hiei was far more comfortable with unspoken relations (like with Yukina) and his feelings for Kurama had hardly deserved mention. Since Hiei was not the type whose affections—such as they were—demanded immediate attention, he hadn't worried overmuch with public declarations or immediate reassurances.

Kurama's feelings, on the other hand, would have been more urgent if he had allowed it, but he'd wanted to take his time with someone as emotionally remote as Hiei. Now that Kurama's well-being—his very free will—was under threat, however, neither of them could really afford to deal with the matter leisurely any more.

"'S not like he'd wear himself to the bone chasing after Kuwabara or me if _we_ got kidnapped by Karasu." Yusuke smirked. "You should be flattered."

Kurama decided to let it go. Clearing his throat, he asked, "So, what was the purpose of invading my sleep in the first place? I hope you didn't come just to make fun of me."

"Moral support!" Yusuke cried exuberantly. "I'm here to tell you not to kill yourself or anything because Hiei's rushing to your rescue!"

Kurama stared at him. "I already knew that."

Yusuke's face fell. "Damn it. Wait . . . there was something else."

Kurama stared some more.

"Got it!" Yusuke snapped his fingers. "First, if you've been worrying about your mom—," he smirked at the strong "momma's boy" implications of those words (but nobody would deny that was what Kurama _was_), "don't, because Koenma got George to call her and say that your trip was extended."

A feeble smile broke over Kurama's face.

In order to explain away the time he'd spent at the Dark Tournament, Kurama had informed his mother that select students in his science class, among whom he had numbered, had been invited to a week-long seminar on biotechnology.

The funny part, though, was imagining a blue oni lying to Shiori over the phone about her son, who in reality had been kidnapped by a homicidal rapist. Kurama thought that finding his situation funny meant that his sense of humor had become seriously twisted, and he pinned this on the extended period of time that he had spent in Karasu's company.

"Also," Yusuke added more seriously, "you have to make your strawberries grow faster. Hiei's falling behind."

"They _are_ growing quickly." Kurama frowned.

"Not quickly enough. You guys are still traveling faster." Yusuke looked vaguely troubled.

"Don't worry," Kurama reassured him. "I have another plan that I have yet to put into motion. The farther north we go, the cooler the climate . . . and the Todakidare grows in cool climates."

"Huh?"

"The Fruit of Past Life," Kurama clarified.

Yusuke's face lit up. "The Fruit of Past Life?" A grin unfurled itself over his face like a triumphant war banner. "Karasu has no chance against Youko Kurama."

"That's what I thought," Kurama said amusedly.

"See, it's these moments of brilliance that you get that make me glad it was you and not me or Kuwabara who got kidnapped by that freak," Yusuke said admiringly.

Kurama grinned at the left-handed compliment, though it diminished when Yusuke's outline began to blur and fade.

"I have to go now . . . be careful, Kurama. And stop beating yourself up over us, because Hiei isn't . . ."

With those words, and another of Yusuke's characteristically cheeky smiles, the dream ended. Kurama woke the next morning feeling almost cheerful.

He lay in the tent after Karasu had risen and concentrated. He tried injecting even more ki into his Makai strawberry, and with a feeling of relief, he felt his seals give way even further, allowing the strawberry runners to grow at an increased rate.

At that point, Karasu reentered. "Come and eat."

"Aren't you just going to tranquilize me again?" Kurama retorted, his good mood quickly dissipating.

"Not today," Karasu said. "In any case, I'd do that after we'd gotten into the carriage. And I need to redo your hair. I took out the plaits for you last night."

Kurama scowled at his smile but followed him outside.

--

Miles behind, Hiei allowed himself a small smirk as he rose and saw the strawberry runner extending far beyond his range of vision. Wherever the runner had paused to send forth roots and a new plant had shot up, succulent strawberries the size of his fist gleamed amongst the leaves. It appeared that Kurama had been thoughtful enough to provide for his breakfast.

--

"We're going to a marketplace today," Karasu informed him over breakfast.

"For supplies?"

"And something else as well." Karasu did not elaborate. Bui remained characteristically silent. This troubled Kurama.

Half an hour later, after Karasu had allowed Kurama to wash himself quickly in a nearby creek (and kept himself from watching with great difficulty), styled Kurama's hair in another ridiculously fanciful manner, and they had packed their things, they set off again.

The horses appeared to be preternaturally strong, as the night's rest had refreshed them enough to go on again after traveling nonstop for hours, with only sparse wild grasses for sustenance along the way. They were actually pawing at the ground, impatient to be off.

Karasu seated himself across from Kurama, gazing openly at him and smiling slightly. If it had been anyone else, Kurama would have described the expression as "lovesick." But in Karasu's case, he thought, the prefix "love-" did not apply.

As they sped towards their next destination, and Hiei pursued, someone else also followed. His bright green eyes shone triumphantly. He was far closer than Hiei was.

A/N: Shimaneki-sou—the deadly grass Kurama used against Roto in the Dark Tournament

Hmm, reviewers are asking lots of questions. I think most of them will be answered in the course of the story, but I'll respond to two right now. First of all, this story has well under fifteen chapters but more than ten, and I won't tell exactly how many because I like surprises.

And as for the two Toguro brothers . . . well, they're not important to this story, but I feel obligated to tie up this loose end. It appears that Toguro Otouto kills his older brother in the manga, though Kurama and the others later discover that Toguro Ani managed to survive. This fic doesn't deviate from that point.

I'm really sorry that it took me so long to update this chapter; RL issues got in the way. XP


	9. Between the Desire and the Spasm

9. Between the Desire and the Spasm

--

At the marketplace, Kurama correctly guessed that Karasu was looking for another sealer. While Karasu wasn't exactly wandering aimlessly, he led Bui and Kurama leisurely, with no real sense of direction, scanning the stalls around them through narrowed eyes.

"What are you looking for?" Kurama asked derisively.

"I'll let you know soon enough," Karasu said placidly, though his jaw tightened.

Kurama opened his mouth to make another retort, but he stopped dead in his tracks, visibly jolted. Only after Bui tilted his head significantly did he remember to fall back into step after Karasu.

He'd seen a booth selling fruits, vegetables, and seeds—if the vendor had the seed for the plant he needed, it could be his ticket to freedom.

He'd originally intended on somehow finding one in the nighttime, while they camped in the forest, but such a discovery wasn't guaranteed. In fact, the success of that plan depended on luck much more than he would have like to admit. But Kurama had enough confidence in his intelligence to believe that he would find better opportunities, and now, the likelihood of him being able to buy a Todakidare seed in the marketplace seemed very high.

He briefly entertained the thought of making a break for it in this crowded area, but Karasu walked at his left, and Bui followed closely behind. At best, he'd be able to take five steps before getting caught. Balling his hands into frustrated fists, he allowed himself to be steered away from the vendor in question. His mind raced with schemes for causing distractions; all he needed was a few minutes to check to see whether the vendor had what he wanted.

As anxiety simmered within Kurama, Karasu directed their steps toward an open square in the marketplace, but on the way they crossed the path of a group of rowdy youkai accompanied by several vulgar-looking women. Kurama, sensing in them the distraction that he needed, decided to throw caution to the winds and use his returning youki to create his opening.

Trying his best to look casual, Kurama ran his hand through his hair. He couldn't risk drawing Bui or Karasu's attention with that simple action, because they both knew that he kept his deadliest weapons there. Fortunately, neither of them saw him, and he discreetly pulled out a small golden bud.

As the group of youkai approached, he squeezed the bud between his thumb and forefinger until the flower inside popped open violently; at the same time, he jerked his wrist sharply towards the nearing youkai. The glittering pollen that streamed out of the flower hit them full on, and Karasu and Bui got some as well.

The pollen of the golden iraira blossom acted as an irritant whose psychological effects, once directly inhaled, drove youkai to the brink of fury. Once one had breathed in the pollen, the smallest provocation could push him over the edge. Kurama's intention in all of this was to start a fight between Karasu, Bui, and the nearing youkai.

Bui stuck obstinately to Kurama's back like a burr, as they walked past the others, which meant that he inadvertently trod on the toes of one of the carousing youkai.

"Oi, watch it!" he yelled loudly, stopping short. The rest of his friends paused as well to stare at them.

Bui did not reply, though Karasu cast an irritated look over at the loud, rather reptilian demon.

"Aren't you going to say sorry, pal?" He jabbed a clawed finger forcefully into Bui's armored chest.

Bui turned away disdainfully, while Karasu said, "You'd do well to leave now, before you really provoke Bui."

The reptilian youkai removed his scaly arm from around the shoulders of his scantily-clad companion, whose coquettish giggles had been silenced. She looked upon the impending scene with frightened eyes.

"Oh yeah?" He stepped uncomfortably close to Bui and shoved him. "Are you really provoked now?" He hit the side of Bui's metal helmet hard, so that Bui's head must have been ringing. "What about now?"

His friends abandoned their whores as well, cracking their knuckles in gleeful anticipation. Walking to Bui's side, Karasu removed his mask. He was evidently in a hurry if he was going to pull out his big guns so early in a fight. As Kurama well knew, he liked to take his time with gradated levels of torment. It must be the effect of the iraira pollen.

"You've done it now," he said, sighing, though his expression was less than regretful. His eyes shone out of his pale face with the fire of enthusiasm, like amethysts set in alabaster. He sucked in air at the same time Bui's gigantic axe materialized in his hand. Kurama watched with hopeful fascination, and screamed silently with exultation as the fight began.

With assorted whoops, the others rushed at Karasu and Bui. Kurama smiled faintly as he turned away: they were sacrificing themselves to give him a priceless opportunity.

Karasu and Bui were completely embroiled in the brawl; Kurama slipped unnoticed to the seed vendor's stall. He was counting on the pollen to cloud their minds so that his short absence would go unseen.

"Do you have any Todakidare fruits?" he asked urgently.

The pug-faced demon stared at him, taken aback by both his abrupt manner and the nature of his request. The Fruit of Past Life was a highly esoteric species; anyone asking for it as casually as if they were requesting an over-the-counter medication deserved careful examination. His greedy eyes took in the gold pins and embroidered ribbons in Kurama's hair. Well, at least this customer obviously had money.

"Maybe," he said slowly. "That's a pretty rare plant. Depends what it's worth to you."

No matter what he had deduced about Youko's strength returning to Minamino Shuiichi's body at the tournament, Kurama still needed to resume his past form in order to have any kind of a fighting chance against Karasu. Shuiichi, after all, was too afraid of him. That was why he was resorting more and more to hiding behind Youko's cold façade now. Still, just the façade wasn't enough.

He had been planning this almost immediately after his ki had been sealed. He was ready now to respond to the seller's thinly veiled bid for offers.

"Here," he said, pulling out the tiny silk pouch that Yukina had given him. He opened the drawstring and poured the three hiruiseki into his palm. He looked at the gaping vendor silently, allowing the sparkling turquoise gems to speak for themselves. He found it strangely appropriate that Yukina's tears should buy his salvation.

"Take it or leave it," he said at last. "I don't have time to haggle."

Kurama was bluffing, of course; he could not afford to leave without obtaining the seed of the Fruit of Past Life. But it didn't matter.

"I don't have fruits, but I do have seeds."

"That's fine," Kurama said quickly.

The vendor reached under his counter, fumbled for a minute, and brought out an oblong, caramel-colored seed the size of an almond.

"I think it's a fair trade," he said officiously, seizing the hiruiseki with one hand and holding out the Todakidare seed with the other.

Kurama's lips quirked in a wry smile as he took the seed, placing it inside the silk pouch and tucking the pouch inside his clothes again. One seed was all he needed. As of yet, he didn't have enough youki to make a flowering tree grow from that seed, but he would soon enough. Then, affirming with a glance that Karasu and Bui were still busy, he stole back to them.

"Let that be a lesson to you," Karasu said softly, as the last standing youkai's head exploded. He turned to Kurama. "Did you stay safely out of the way?"

He hadn't noticed, then. Kurama nodded, relief washing over him. His breath caught a little when Bui gave him a sidelong look, but the armored youkai said nothing.

"Good." Karasu's face unwound into a smile. "I don't want you getting hurt right now."

Kurama did not deign to reply. Karasu continued, "I don't think we'll find what we've been looking for here, so after we eat here, we'll be on our way."

Kurama smiled privately. He had found what _he'd_ been looking for.

--

That night, they stopped in a thicket on the side of the road to set up camp.

"We're almost there," Karasu said, looking around at the environment as Bui started a fire. "The foliage has changed—though that's not something I pretend to be an expert at," he said facetiously, inclining his head towards Kurama.

The flora wasn't the only thing that had changed. Kurama hunched into himself miserably and drew closer to the small fire, his breaths billowing in front of him. The temperature was bearable during the day, but nights and early mornings were quickly becoming intolerable. The kimonos he had brought from Karasu's house were not designed to protect their wearer from the bite of frost and wind.

"These are northern plants . . . we've been moving faster than I expected. I'd forgotten how quickly those horses traveled. In fact, I think we will arrive in Mokuzai in several days. At the most."

Several days! Kurama panicked internally. He wouldn't be able to produce a Fruit of Past Life in several days. At best, he'd get a sapling, but certainly not a mature tree capable of bearing fruit. Well, maybe if he slowed the growth of the Makai strawberry following them . . .? He weighed the possibility. He could devote all his ki to the Todakidare, in hopes of gaining the ability to defend himself; or he could stick with the strawberry plant and wait for Hiei to catch up.

_I've never needed anyone else_, Youko said derisively, but this time, his words offered Kurama no comfort. He _did_ need people . . . his mother, his teammates, and Hiei above anyone else now.

He continued to grapple with the problem as he sat in front of the fire, and his contemplation turned the weightless seed at his neck into a millstone.

Karasu turned toward him, intending to say something more, when there was a sudden whistling sound and a small thud. Stiffly, Karasu reached behind his back and yanked out a small, bronze-tipped arrow covered in his blood. He stared at it furiously for a moment and tossed it aside.

A shape burst out of the shadows, panting with excitement. Kurama regarded the newcomer with utter incomprehension. He was a well-dressed blond with eyes like malachites.

It was Matsuoka.

"I've found you," he hissed exultantly at Karasu, whose eyes narrowed. "I could have poisoned the arrow tip to cause you a slow and painful death, but I want your death to bear the marks of a more . . . personal touch.

"Don't you know who I am?" he taunted, when Karasu's expression remained blank.

Karasu's lip curled underneath his mask. "I have the great pleasure of being able to decline."

"Do you remember Sawashima Kiriyama?"

"Oh." Karasu's tense demeanor slackened. "A tedious case of revenge. Why must you all take everything so personally? I assure you it's purely business on my end."

Bui rose, the quiet menace unmistakable in every line of his rigid form. Karasu motioned to him to back away.

"No, Bui. He wants revenge on me," he said quietly, smiling.

"Come on then," snarled Matsuoka. "Lapdog of the Shikaku."

Karasu turned his palm up, forming a bomb. He was in no hurry this time; he could enjoy himself. He wanted to wait before taking off his mask and delivering the killing blow.

Matsuoka pulled out two curved swords with blades so thin that they looked like the ribs of a giant fish. Whirling them about in a complicated pattern, he created a small force field that repelled Karasu's first bomb.

"You know how to play," Karasu observed with pleasure, waving his hands to create more bombs. "Your brother never had that level of skill."

"Go to hell!" Matsuoka growled unoriginally, rotating his swords with impossibly fluid wrist movements so that they looked like silver pinwheels. Karasu smirked.

Kurama looked upon the fight eagerly. Perhaps with everyone so intent on the battle, he could seize the opportunity to flee and maybe even meet Hiei. He was having incredible luck today.

Heady with this glimpse of freedom, Kurama edged into the shadows outside the firelight; Karasu was certainly too preoccupied to notice. But Bui was not.

_BOOM._

An axe with a blade the size of a cow had slammed into the ground in front of Kurama, blocking his way and shooting up a spray of dislodged earth. Kurama turned around to see Bui standing where he had been, holding an axe with a handle long enough so that he could impede Kurama without having to move. It was the first time Kurama had seen Bui with a weapon since the Dark Tournament.

"I've been very lenient with you," Bui said quietly.

Kurama walked stiffly back into the circle of light cast by the fire, brushing dirt from his clothes. Bui's implied words had been, _But I can't let you do this._

Karasu and Matsuoka continued to fight, apparently oblivious to what had just occurred. Finally, Karasu said, "Your powers are impressive . . . but in the end, you'd have done better to have stayed at home weeping over your brothers."

A trickle of blood flowed from a wound past his hairline, down his forehead, and over his fingers as he ripped off his mask to take in explosive material from the air. Kurama watched with a nauseated feeling of déjà vu as Karasu's hair changed color and he clasped his hands, laughing maniacally.

"Die!" he shouted, rising into the air at least twenty feet before diving at Matsuoka. With all his agility, Matsuoka managed to escape the worst of the explosion, though a huge gash opened on his shoulder, and left his right arm dangling uselessly at his side.

"Shit!"

The sword in his right hand fell to the ground. He winced, and in a flash, disappeared into the trees.

"Coward," Karasu laughed, wantonly sending several bombs after him into the forest. Despite his laughter, there was anger in his expression—anger, perhaps, at being denied the opportunity of making a kill.

They heard the loud crashes of falling trees in the distance, but no shriek or groan from Matsuoka that would have indicated death from being crushed by a log.

"Come back!" Karasu called.

"We'll be seeing him again," Bui said, picking up the slender blade.

An expression flitted across Karasu's face too quickly for Kurama to follow it, but it seemed as though he had just remembered something. He stepped toward Kurama. "I noticed that he wasn't the only one who wanted to run away."

Kurama backed up and hit the side of a tent, realizing that Karasu had indeed seen him. There was a demonic look in his eyes that frightened him. While those eyes had always glowed with a disturbing light, it had been subdued. Now it was fanned into a blazing inferno.

Even his facial features spoke more strongly of cruelty. The newly uncovered parts of his face—his nose, chin, and mouth—all possessed sinister angles jarring to one accustomed to the round contours of his mask. His lips curled up maliciously, and Kurama shuddered, remembering his horrible "goodnight" routines.

Karasu came closer, his curly blond hair bouncing as he walked. Kurama had always feared Karasu in general, but his blond incarnation inspired exceptional terror.

_I never feared him_, Youko whispered in the back of his mind, and Kurama reached down for his strength.

One of the greatest similarities Kurama and Karasu shared was their duality of character. The loud, flashy blond was almost unrecognizable in the pensive, more quietly sinister Karasu. Likewise, studious and mild-mannered Minamino Shuiichi had rather effectively buried the dissolute and unfeeling Youko within himself. But Karasu and Kurama were both inextricably linked to their alter egos.

Karasu kept advancing, and Kurama stood his ground now that he was in tune with Youko. Unfortunately, even Youko couldn't save him while trapped inside Shuiichi.

"I haven't disciplined you well enough," Karasu said, leaning in close to Kurama's face. "If I had, you would never have thought of running away."

Kurama looked around wildly. Bui, probably aware of what was going to happen and knowing that his position forbade interference, had disappeared.

"I've been soft with you." Karasu caressed the side of Kurama's face, entangling his fingers in braided hair as he did so. A pin fell out of place. Karasu smiled; knowing that when he was through, all of the pins and ribbons in Kurama's hair would be scattered and unraveled.

"I've been too kind," he murmured. The hand in Kurama's hair descended to stroke his neck; he rested his fingers on Kurama's frantic, fluttering pulse. He smiled as he felt the fear there.

Kurama stepped backwards at the sight of that menacing smile, only to tumble into the tent. That presented the perfect opportunity to Karasu, who was instantly in there with him—in fact, on top of him.

"Don't do this," Kurama shouted, struggling underneath Karasu's weight as he began to tear at Kurama's clothes. "Remember what you said about needing my cooperation, about waiting!"

But in this frenzied state, which Kurama recognized only too well, Karasu was beyond reason. It was like dealing with a drunk, or a child—someone with no self-restraint.

He laughed and said, "Struggle all you like. I've always admired your spirited nature."

He forced the black, fountain spray-patterned kimono that Kurama was wearing down around his knees; the boy's flushed skin glowed palely against the dark silk in the firelight that filtered in through the walls of the tent.

As he ripped Kurama's clothing apart, though, the pouch around his neck containing the Todakidare seed fell innocuously to the side, without drawing Karasu's attention. Though overwhelmed by the enormity of the situation, Kurama noticed that and thanked the gods for small mercies.

But he trembled violently under Karasu's rapacious gaze—and no less insatiable touch.

"Beautiful," Karasu said quietly. "But I knew that already. I've always known it."

He fell upon Kurama.

"Scream and curse all you want," Karasu murmured feverishly against hot skin. "It will all sound like words of love to me." His mouth dipped down busily on Kurama's sensitive flesh, but when he came up for air, he added, "I remember how vocal you were at the Dark Tournament."

During their match, Karasu had viewed Kurama's screams as the magnificent chords and rippling cadences he had produced on a living instrument by manipulating his Quest Class powers. He expected the same results now that he was attacking Kurama again, albeit in a different manner. Kurama did scratch and bite, but his efforts at resistance left him too breathless to rail at Karasu—though his raging eyes spoke eloquently.

Karasu was even more vicious in his frenzy of adoration. Each kiss and thrust tore into Kurama like the bullet that had ripped his soul from his body and sent him into Ningenkai.

Wilting under Karasu like a daisy beset by frost, Kurama thought desperately about exerting a fierce burst of youki to repel the crow youkai. He was paralyzed by his anguished terror; he rationalized frenetically, _I'm not strong enough yet and if I expose myself now it will all be over, best to endure this and exact vengeance later, oh what a vengeance it will be!_ His thoughts raced as unsteadily as his shallow breathing.

"Finally—yes," Karasu muttered fiercely, washing over Kurama like the inexorable tide, drowning him in his passion. "I—yes—_Kurama_."

He had never hated the sound of his name so much. Karasu's lips blighted it.

Kurama's disgust and horror reached fever pitch, and for a few moments he shut down completely, feeling totally detached as Karasu's ravaging culminated in intensity. He was simply so rattled that his mind could not process any more.

When it was finally over, Kurama slowly came back down. Cold rage, rather than despair or shame, flooded him. Kurama lay there with Karasu's blood drying on his lips and under his fingernails, feeling as though he had just been cast in steel and not shattered into a thousand pieces of china. This violation, which would have been the breaking point of most, was only the final temperance of Kurama's will. _What does not kill us makes us stronger,_ Youko said.

"Yes," Kurama whispered.

--

The next morning, when Kurama opened his eyes, the tent was empty. He stepped out and saw only Bui, who had apparently taken it upon himself the duty of apologizing for Karasu and making excuses for his absence.

Snow had fallen during the night, blanketing the ground and the trees. Bui moved towards Kurama across a white plane, kicking up snow as he did so.

"He really does regret what happened. He was not himself," Bui said quietly. "You have become far more to him than a whore to be used. You have become so important that your happiness is integral to his."

"Careful, Bui," Kurama retorted, secure in his own strength. "You're coming close to calling it love."

"Your beauty inspires his reverence, and reverence is the highest form of love."

"I suppose it excuses even rape," Kurama sneered. His breath came out in ghostlike puffs. "But when Karasu's conduct is ugly, it doesn't mean that he's not himself. I think in his case, ugly conduct is not the exception, but the rule. And you—his lackey." He stared at Bui for a second. "Well, I suppose I expected nothing better of _you_."

Bui dropped his eyes, though Kurama could not see. Bui's eyes were obscured by the shadow cast by his helmet's visor.

Kurama ate a light breakfast, and afterwards washed thoroughly with water he obtained from boiling snow. His ablutions were not a compulsive, futile act as is most often the case with such victims. He cleaned himself calmly, feeling as if each drop of water that rolled off his body and was absorbed by the snowy ground carried with it the stink of Karasu's touch.

When Karasu returned from wherever he had gone, Kurama noticed he could not bear to meet his eyes for long. Karasu did not mention the events of the previous night, saying only, "We're leaving now."

Even in the carriage, Karasu chose to drive the horses in order to escape Kurama's gaze. Kurama stared at Bui at they sped along, reveling in the uncomfortable silence between them. Bui inwardly marveled at the triumphant light in his green eyes, but there was something petulant about it, as with a child who has scored a petty victory. Bui, whose respect for Kurama's strength had grown into admiration, hated to see the ugliness on Kurama's face that Karasu had wrought.

He had to do something. His previous failed attempts spurred him on to try again.

At that very moment, however, an explosion sounded outside and caused the carriage to reverberate. Bui and Kurama scrambled to the windows to see the source of the disturbance.

Thirty feet distant, a large hollow had been blown into the snow, exposing the gray-brown dirt underneath. Different sized chunks of snow were scattered haphazardly around the explosion site.

As Kurama started to ask about it, another explosion occurred, this time knocking a spindly-branched tree down. It was rapidly followed by another. The horses sped on composedly, however, though a trail of disturbed snow banks and fallen trees marked their violent wake.

"What's happening?"

Bui's hands clenched involuntarily. "Karasu is upset. His emotions . . . have overtaken him so that he can't control his explosive abilities any longer. Even his mask is ineffective in restraining his powers." His explanation was punctuated with more explosions, each louder than the last.

And this incontrovertible piece of evidence replaced Kurama's horribly smug expression with a deeply contemplative, somewhat disturbed look. It did for Bui what he never could have hoped to accomplish with his clumsy words.

Karasu would have done anything to give back what he had taken forcefully from Kurama last night, and now Kurama could not deny it.

--

A/N: It is not my intention to make light of, or otherwise promote rape. **Funara**, I remember that you expressed distaste at the idea of Karasu taking Kurama by force, and this is _your_ gift fic, but I'd already had this chapter planned out well in advance. I hope I handled the subject tastefully enough for your sensibilities.

But I _was_ thinking it might have been about time to introduce blond!Karasu, and I warned about this indirectly by upping the rating.

And ack! Forgive this horribly late update! Real life got in the way again. --"

But here we are at last, at the brink of chapter ten, which I'd said I was having trouble with a few weeks ago. Well—I'm still having trouble with it. Progress has been made, however, and now I only have to worry about chapter eleven . . .


	10. Final Meeting

10. Final Meeting

--

Given that Hiei was a fire demon who had been rejected by an island of ice maidens, it wasn't too surprising that he hated snow and _strongly_ disliked sleet.

He wasn't sure which of the two was pelting him right now; it seemed an odd mixture of extremely watery snow. Northern Alaric was famed for its miserable weather, but this was actually the region's first legitimate cause of complaint in months.

Hiei pulled his cloak over his face as a makeshift hood, and muttered, "This must be what happens when clouds have diarrhea."

The precipitation really did have that kind of consistency, with small chunks of gray ice dispersed in an intermediate mush. The stuff felt disgusting when it hit Hiei's face, never mind that it was only poorly frozen water.

Fortunately, Kurama's strawberries proved themselves as a hardy strain. They continued to produce enough fist–sized fruit to feed a small nation, and their growth was actually accelerating despite the adverse conditions.

Hiei took this as a sign that Kurama's powers were increasing.

"Hn. Maybe you'll become strong enough to take care of that bastard by yourself." Hiei smiled grimly; "that bastard" obviously referred to Karasu. Then he blinked. "On second thought, _don't_ save me the trouble. I'll just be annoyed at the sight of blood that I haven't drawn from him myself."

The Jaganshi hastened on through the oppressive weather, cursing Kurama with a certain degree of fondness (and Karasu not so much) for forcing him to stoop to such a level that he was reduced to talking to himself.

Did Hiei love Kurama? He would have shied away from a direct avowal, even though there was no Kuwabara to taunt him, because the answer to that question was now much more strongly positive than before, and Hiei was no good with strong emotions. The next logical question—what had strengthened Hiei's attachment to Kurama?—could probably be answered by quoting the adage, "Absence makes the heart grow fonder."

In this case, absence was responsible, yes; but also pressing concern for Kurama's well-being, and even his _life_.

Hiei remembered distinctly how Kurama had nearly sacrificed his life to kill Karasu, and how even that had failed, gaining him only a hollow victory. And now he was at the crow youkai's mercy. Hiei snarled and tried to shut down this line of thought, because he didn't want to be weighed down by his fears (which were well-founded) of what Karasu might have done to Kurama.

He was not very successful in his endeavor.

--

The next few days blurred into an indistinguishable routine of traveling for hours in the carriage, getting out to set up camp at night, and endless bad weather. The watery gray light that greeted their eyes at eight in the morning was the same that shone down upon them at noon, and the same as that which faded away during unspectacular sunsets.

Karasu no longer shared a bed with Kurama at night, choosing instead to sleep in Bui's tent. Bui didn't sleep at night, at least not to Kurama's knowledge. The last that Kurama knew before he fell asleep, Bui was always sitting at the fire, as if acting guard.

Kurama slept well, now that Karasu left him alone. He wondered if Karasu was unable to face him, or if he was simply trying to give Kurama a sense of security.

One morning, however, Bui entered Kurama's tent to shake him awake.

"What is it?" Kurama demanded groggily, struggling to focus his eyes.

"Karasu wants to see you."

Kurama instantly snapped out of his drowsy haze.

"What for?"

"Don't worry," Bui said, his voice softening at the hard, suspicious look on Kurama's face. He looked like a cornered animal. "Just go."

Kurama stared at Bui for a while with an unfathomable expression before disengaging himself from his blankets. Bui left the tent, and Kurama followed him outside with a not insubstantial feeling of apprehension. Bui pointed at Karasu's tent, and Kurama entered hesitantly.

Karasu, who was seated, looked up from a mahogany chest, the contents of which he appeared to have been examining. To both their credits, Karasu and Kurama met each other's gaze levelly.

At last, Karasu spoke.

"Sit, please," he said, indicating the opposite side of the traveling rug which he occupied.

Kurama obeyed warily.

"I . . . that night," Karasu said, faltering despite the deliberate quality of his voice. "It was wrong of me to undo your hair as carelessly as I did. Let me redo it."

Kurama stared at him. Surely he didn't take this as a symbolic "undoing" of the violation he had committed. He saw the gleaming contents of the mahogany box, elegant pins and ribbons, and his face hardened.

"It's quite unnecessary now," he said frostily.

In response, Karasu's face tightened. "It's necessary _now,_ because we're near our destination, and you must be presentable." He whipped out a hairbrush and advanced on Kurama, his jaw set rigidly beneath his mask.

As Kurama succumbed grudgingly to Karasu's ministrations, he wondered in the back of his mind whether Karasu had clumsily been trying to apologize. He also wondered, more spitefully, whether it even mattered.

--

During their course that day, they had nearly attained their destination. When Karasu halted the carriage and called for them to disembark, they were in a thicket at the edge of an immense, gray body of water almost indistinguishable from the overcast, washed-out evening sky. Tendrils of fog curled between the bare branches overhead; underfoot, the ground was soggy. Kurama had heard the wheels squelching nastily, and he had seen the sprays of mud thrown up in the horses' wake.

Overall, the moving portrait that had been framed in the carriage window created an effect so exceedingly dreary that Kurama thought it would have wreaked psychological genocide on people prone to Seasons Affective Disorder. He himself was feeling depressed, though he certainly had many other valid reasons behind that.

"Lake Mugen," muttered Bui, getting up noisily as his armor creaked.

Kurama exited closely behind him, grimacing as the cold, moist lake air condensed on his skin. His face contorted in further disgust when his heels sank deeply into the mud despite his light footfall.

"We're close," Bui said by way of a question.

Karasu nodded, and extended his arm to point at the lake's far shore. Kurama nearly expected to see an explosion at the other side. That simple gesture had irrevocably taken on unpleasant connotations in his mind.

"Nekura lives on the eastern bank. This lake is fairly large, so we must take a ferry over. When I planned this out, I made an appointment with the youkai who oversees Nekura's visitors. Nekura doesn't enjoy company very much—particularly when it is unexpected. We're ahead of schedule. I hadn't anticipated that the horses would bear us with such speed."

Kurama couldn't help glaring at the remarkably sturdy beasts (who hadn't even broken a sweat despite the day's journey), as if they were at fault.

"But we are a day early. The ferryman will carry us over tomorrow afternoon."

"What do we do today then?" Bui asked.

Karasu smiled. "We wait."

They set up camp again, and all three gathered around the fire to warm themselves. But while they were sitting together, their thoughts were wandering in very different quarters . . .

Kurama made his final decision about when to take action. By this point, he had regained enough youki to commune with plants, and he had learned from the strawberries that Hiei was very, very close. He decided to wait until Hiei had caught up (which, he estimated, would be around the time the next day when they saw Nekura) before unleashing his powers and fighting Karasu.

As he saw it, this was the wisest choice, because he certainly could not take on Karasu and Bui alone. With Hiei at his side, however, he was confident that they could dispatch Karasu, Bui, and even Nekura, if necessary. The fact that Hiei had single-handedly managed to finish off "anyone standing in his way" (Karasu's words) had impressed Kurama deeply.

The knowledge of Hiei's nearness had rendered Kurama breathless with anticipation once he'd received it. As he sat across from Bui and Karasu now, he was making a considerable effort to keep his joy from shining through his face.

But Bui and Karasu were too deeply engrossed in their own meditations to take much notice of Kurama's expression. Karasu, certainly, was shooting intent looks at Kurama's face every now and then, but something else entirely occupied his thoughts.

With the devotion of a lover, Karasu traced the curves of Kurama's cheekbones, and followed the fall of his adorned hair with a curiously tender gaze. Kurama, as always, was breathtaking for him to behold—and he did not question for a minute that everything had been worthwhile thus far. He could not, however, remember Hiroshi and his generosity, or Takara and her misguided affections, without sharp pangs of regret. Karasu tried to shake those feelings off, but he as he looked upon Kurama, he was forcibly reminded of a beautifully carven pagan idol at whose feet lay blood sacrifices—sacrifices needed to keep a capricious god happy.

Also, he worried vaguely in the back of his mind about whether his unplanned violation of Kurama would negatively affect his plans. He hadn't been lying when he'd said that Kurama's cooperation, unwilling or not, was crucial to the realization of his dreams.

Still, he was so close now to attaining his goal that he could not be other than deliriously happy. He kept his entire face a mask, though, in order not to panic Kurama—although, unbeknownst to Karasu, Kurama was also too excited for lesser emotions like panic.

Bui, like the other two, was deep in thought. He bowed his head and seemed to be staring fixedly at his knees—although no one could really tell where Bui was looking, with that visor. It would be difficult to guess what he was thinking, except that his mind was no less agitated than his companions'.

He rose abruptly, causing Kurama and Karasu to look up at him in surprise.

"Bui?" Karasu queried, the sound of the name sliding from his lips and into Bui's heart with the accuracy of a bullet.

Bui glanced at Karasu and Kurama briefly before muttering something about tending to the horses and turning away. He was the only one who could read the poorly veiled, eager expectancy on both of their faces, and it sickened him. Bui alone knew that one of them was bound to be horribly disappointed: neither's hopes could be realized without dashing those of the other. And Bui himself didn't know which one he wanted to prevail.

--

That night, as Kurama was lying alone in his tent, he woke suddenly. His eyes flew open, but he had no idea what had roused him. He heard ominous rustling noises outside, and turned to look at the wall of his tent. The flickering light of the fire cast dark shadows on the cloth wall, but Kurama thought he could see people's shadows moving as well. And if he listened more closely . . . he heard the pained grunts of two fighters locked in combat.

Kurama scrambled to the front of his tent and drew the flaps apart a hair's breadth to peek outside. What he saw made his breath catch audibly in his throat.

Matsuoka!

How could they have been so stupid as to forget him? The mistake might very well cost Bui his life, if Kurama didn't intervene.

It appeared that Matsuoka had crept up on Bui as he was holding his nightly vigil by the fire, and thrown a glowing lasso around his neck. Apparently, Matsuoka relied heavily on fancy weaponry rather than youki, like his brother. Bui was so tightly choked that he could not cry for help, and he seemed half-paralyzed.

Kurama weighed his options frantically. He could probably save Bui's life, but that would reveal the full extent to which he had regained his powers. And Karasu wouldn't be happy when he found out, which he inevitably would if Kurama chose to step in . . .

On the other hand, Bui had shown him too many small kindnesses for Kurama to be able to live with himself if he let Bui die. He could not forget that his powers had only been restored this far because of Bui's complicit silence.

Kurama gave a sigh, stepped out of the tent, and threaded his hand through his hair. He pulled out a rose, and shook it out silently into a whip. The feel of the stiff handle in his grasp was immensely reassuring after weeks of being defenseless and at Karasu's mercy. After approaching as near as he could while remaining unnoticed, Kurama gripped the rose whip as if it were the hand of a lover, and drew back his arm to lash it across Matsuoka's lasso.

Hissing, it sailed through the air and wound tightly around the glowing lasso several times; with grim satisfaction, Kurama jerked his arm backwards to snap the lasso. Bui stumbled backward in relief, massaging his neck with one hand, and forming an axe in the other.

But Kurama was determined to finish the job he had started, especially as he would have to pay a heavy price in any case.

Matsuoka, white with fury, cracked the glowing length still in his hand. He began snapping it at Kurama's rose whip, and they began dueling.

"Who are you to interfere?" he demanded. "Aren't you their prisoner?"

Kurama said nothing, just kept at attacking him.

Matsuoka's eyes widened a little. "Could it be . . . are you connected with that Hiei?"

Kurama stumbled a little in shock, but it wasn't enough to give Matsuoka a real advantage.

Through deft feinting and footwork, Kurama had lured Matsuoka in front of an ideal tree. At that moment, he sent a command for a jutting branch to shoot forth and stab Matsuoka in the back. The branch penetrated all the way through, bursting through his chest in a bloody spray, and lifting him several inches above the ground.

"Fuck . . ." he gasped, blood welling up in his mouth and dripping from his lips. His wild, confused eyes rolled madly in his head. He convulsed for a few seconds before going limp, and hanging like a piece of meat in a butcher's window. Bui closed in and hacked off Matsuoka's head in one clean motion with his axe. It rolled around and came to rest far from their campsite, though Kurama could still see the eerily vacant gaze from the half-open eyes.

He felt a slight twinge of regret about killing someone who shared his hatred of Karasu, and he was burning to know how Matsuoka knew Hiei.

Nevertheless, a wave of bizarrely mingled contentment and pleasure washed over Kurama, mixed with excitement at hearing Hiei's name. It had been so long since he'd felt empowered in the presence of adversity. But even that was going to be short-lived. Ominous, slow footsteps approached.

Kurama turned to see Karasu draw near, his eyes hooded and his hair swinging behind him sinisterly like clinging shadows. Kurama froze like a deer caught in headlights. Karasu had seen everything.

"Now that he's taken care of, what am I going to do with you?" Karasu's voice was soft and unnerved. He had just realized the danger he had been sitting on all this time. His nervousness at this discovery probably matched Kurama's at being found out.

Karasu's eyes traveled over the rose whip still in his hand, and the bloody branch protruding from Matsuoka's chest.

"It was only a matter of time before you attacked me, wasn't it?"

Without waiting for a reply, he flicked his fingers irritably, as if drying his hands. The small explosions that resulted decimated Kurama's left leg, sending him to the ground. With a twist of his wrist, he sent a bomb at Kurama's right arm, causing him to drop the rose whip.

Kurama groaned, bleeding profusely. He struggled to defend himself by retaliating with the defensive Fuka Enbujin. As he had during their match at the Dark Tournament, Karasu advanced past the rose petals unharmed, blowing them to bits.

"Even now, you won't be helpless."

Karasu raised his arm again to throw another bomb at Kurama, but a hand darted out and seized him by the elbow.

"Don't."

Karasu turned to look at Bui, curious despite his anger. "Why are you interfering?" he demanded.

"Remember the last time you lost control with him—and what that mistake might still cost you. Think of all you went through to attain him. Shouldn't you take more care with your prize?"

"I would think that _your_ prize might become more useful, then, Bui," Karasu retorted. "It's been worthless so far."

Completely baffled despite his relief at having been saved by Bui's intervention, Kurama stared at them. Bui's prize, he remembered Karasu had told Takeo, was a necklace of some sort. How would it be useful in relation to himself?

Kurama's question would not be answered at that moment; Bui was already turning away from Karasu's hard expression and callous words. But Bui had made his point regarding Kurama, and Karasu was not going to injure him further.

Glaring at Kurama, he whirled about and ducked swiftly into his tent. Kurama didn't dare stir—even if he hadn't been effectively crippled, he was too frightened to make a break for it. For it was the first time Karasu had looked at Kurama with any emotion even resembling anger in his eyes, and Kurama was more fearful of him now than he had been during his ravishment.

Indeed, any advantage Kurama might have gained from his resilience against Karasu's rape seemed to have been lost, as Karasu had just deliberately and consciously hurt him. And this time, Karasu would probably not drop any hints of internal distress caused by harming Kurama—because he felt perfectly justified in his actions.

Karasu emerged from the tent in just as much of a hurry as he had disappeared into it, and he strode briskly to Kurama's side, grabbing his arm.

Before Kurama even had time to react, Karasu had shoved the billowing sleeve of his blood-spattered kimono out of the way, and plunged a familiar-looking syringe into the crook of his elbow.

"By this time tomorrow," he said savagely, "you will have submitted to me, sweet and docile as a lamb."

As Kurama lost consciousness, however, a feeble—but very real—hope rose within him. He had managed to discern that no matter how much Karasu believed he was predicting an imminent development, his voice had given him away. He should have spoken with absolute certitude, but his tone betrayed a nervous waver; as if instead of predicting something as certain as the sunrise, he was praying for a supernova.

--

The next day, Bui and Karasu packed up their traveling gear and made for the lakeshore, where a brown-uniformed youkai was waiting for them with a crude raft. Bui carried Kurama's unconscious body, as he had before.

"You look ill," Bui observed as they stepped onto the raft.

"Ill?" Karasu repeated, his voice trembling. "At this moment?"

"Maybe it's too much excitement," Bui remarked with some bitterness, noting how Karasu's limbs quivered.

"Yes," said Karasu, turning a ghastly smile on him. "And my dislike of water."

The waves, calm as the lake was, slopped up the edges of the raft and sprayed them both with a fine mist. It seemed that even this was too much for Karasu's delicate constitution on water.

But he looked forward eagerly as Nekura's house, an unassuming little cottage, came into view. The moment he had been waiting for was drawing near.

Kurama, headachy from the effects of the tranquilizer, came to just as they set foot on the shore. He glared at Karasu, who smirked triumphantly before looking away.

Kurama felt sick and weak, because of the sedative and his injuries. His arm and leg throbbed with pain, though the wounds had been cleaned and bandaged. Despite his physical condition, he retained enough presence of mind to think of Hiei, and the imminent salvation he represented. It was imperative that he use the Todakidare seed now, in order to be in his Youko form to help Hiei when he arrived. He feebly raised his arm to his chest, and under the pretense of loosening his collar to breathe more freely, opened the pouch containing his precious seed.

Once he was confident that neither Bui nor Karasu were looking, he took it out and dropped it onto the ground. And just in time too, for they had now reached Nekura's front door. He immediately poured his efforts into making the seed grow, and even as Karasu set foot on Nekura's front step, Kurama could feel the seed sending forth roots into the earth.

"Put Kurama down," Karasu directed Bui, who complied. "I'm sure he's regained his legs, ne?"

Kurama, conscious that he had just sown the seed of Karasu's downfall, contented himself with a glare at Karasu for that jibe. His leg didn't hurt too much, if he put all his weight on the other one. And, he would be eating Todakidare fruit soon to compensate for his injuries.

Visibly brimming with eagerness, Karasu shook back his luxurious hair before knocking at Nekura's door. The door opened almost immediately, as if the person inside had been waiting for his visitors for a while.

"Good afternoon, Nekura-sama," Karasu said politely, bowing from the waist. Bui dipped into an identical bow behind him.

Kurama could not tear his eyes from Nekura long enough to follow suit (besides which, his injuries prevented him from bending over). The youkai who menaced his very free will was terrible to behold. Nekura had too many piercings and scars to count, and all in strange places which distorted his facial structure. A bell dangled from a ring protruding above his right temple, and a chain with three links hung from another ring that entered beneath his chin, and emerged from the right corner of his mouth. Three consecutive hoops graced the left side of his jaw, and uneven stitches dotted his cheeks and forehead.

"Welcome. I know you have traveled far," said Nekura, smiling in greeting and motioning them inside.

It was disturbing how the ring through his mouth pressed against his lower lip as he smiled and how the stitches on his face contracted as he talked. Kurama managed to get into the house, however, and take in his surroundings.

Karasu led the way inside; Bui assisted Kurama. The room was crudely and sparsely furnished. The three youkai assembled themselves on the assorted, roughly hewn chairs gathered around a makeshift coffee table while Nekura rose to busy himself with a stove in the corner of the room.

"Would you like some tea?"

"Please," murmured Karasu. He was really very impatient to get it over and done with, but it was necessary to behave with utmost courtesy towards Nekura.

"All right." Nekura looked up serenely at the door. "I'll pour five cups then."

"Don't bother," said a hard voice from the doorway.

Kurama didn't say a word, but Karasu saw the way he turned and opened towards the intruder like a sunflower to the summer sky. He hated the earnest look of longing in Kurama's green eyes, which had never been directed at him.

_Hiei_, Karasu snarled mentally.

Hiei glanced at Kurama, and the ensuing spark that occurred when their eyes met sent an electric thrill down both of their spines. Hiei drank in the sight of Kurama alive (if not necessarily well), and Kurama actually felt light-headed at the manifestation of his prayers. But they weren't given much time to greet each other after their long time apart.

"Hello, Hiei," Nekura said, with the ease of greeting an old friend.

"Shigure." Hiei acknowledged him tersely, his hand at his katana. "What are you doing here?"

"Shigure?" Karasu repeated.

Nekura smiled slightly, a frightening sight that never truly lost its horror. "Of the four of you, Hiei alone knows my true identity. He knows me as Shigure, the surgeon. But even he does not know that I am now the leading general of Mukuro-sama of Alaric."

"What?" Hiei snapped.

Karasu's eyes darted back and forth. He was usually quick on the uptake, and this time he put two and two together before anyone else.

"It is curious that you seem to have taken an extended leave of the armed forces," Karasu observed shrewdly. "I know that you prepared the poison used on the Urameshi team at the Dark Tournament. But you have not only established yourself as an apothecary; you've also gained a reputation as a sealer."

Shigure smirked. "Mukuro-sama was very interested to hear that the Toguro brothers were entering the Dark Tournament this year. They had grown so powerful that several years back, they had ceased to participate. No one offered them a satisfactory challenge any more.

"Mukuro-sama was even more interested to learn that they had specifically invited a team of Reikai Tantei, half of whom were humans, with the ultimate purpose of meeting them in the semifinals. So she sent me off to ingratiate myself with the tournament officials, in order to give her detailed information. She'd known that with such a promising combination of elements, something worth her notice was bound to occur—though I doubt anyone suspected events would take such an extraordinary turn."

"Mukuro discharged her head general to investigate something that she wasn't even sure was going to turn up definite results?" Kurama demanded. "Nothing might have happened, and then she would have gone to a lot of trouble for nothing!"

"There's more," Shigure said mysteriously. "But I see that the Jaganshi is practically foaming at the mouth for a chance to finish off Karasu. I think for the time being, I will bow out to the inevitable fight, and finish what I have to say after you have worked everything out." He stepped back and raised his hands. "I am a neutral party."

The other four youkai needed no further urging, and leapt at each other.

In a corner of the room, Shigure allowed himself a small, satisfied smile as he watched the struggle begin. So far things had worked out according to plan—perhaps even surpassing what he had expected.

--

A/N: Fuka Enbujin—the defensive attack Kurama employs that uses swirling, razor-sharp rose petals

I've been complaining and struggling over this chapter for a long time, and hopefully, you all understand why after reading it! I do like how it turned out.

Unfortunately, chapter 11 will probably take just as long for me to finish. XP

But now that we're nearing the climax, I was wondering how many of you readers are rooting for Kurama and Hiei against Karasu, or vice versa. Personally, Karasu is my favorite character (if it hasn't been obvious), but **Funara**, who this is written for, is a huge HxK fan. So I thought it would be interesting to know how many are you are on each side, so to speak.

Not that it would change anything, mind you, as I've had the ending planned out for months. Still, I'd like to know. ;)


	11. Ending with a Whimper

11. Ending With a Whimper

A/N: Sorry for the incredibly late update! My life has been hectic, and I'm happy to be able to write again.

The results for the informal poll that I conducted last chapter were unsurprising: 14 reviewers said they support HxK, while 5 reviewers preferred KxK. Well, you'll find out the true outcome in this chapter.

_--_

As soon as Shigure had finished speaking and moved into a corner, Kurama poured a cascade of ki into the germinating Todakidare seed that he had dropped outside. Almost immediately, a mature tree erupted out of the earth and sprang up like a sword. They all heard the explosion of the upsurging tree and the pitter-patter of dirt clods hitting the ground. Karasu quickly formed all the right conclusions and immediately turned his hand palm up to form a bomb.

"No," Hiei grunted. Instead of unwrapping the bindings on his right arm, he leapt at Karasu with his katana. He was unwilling to use the Kokuryuuha in such close quarters.

Kurama silently blessed Hiei as Bui lumbered over to assist Karasu, leaving Kurama completely unguarded. A tree branch shot through the window nearest to him. Glass sprayed everywhere, and one shard grazed Kurama's face. A drop of blood trickled down his cheek like a tear, but he didn't care. His attention was focused on a round, purple-red fruit swelling rapidly from a pale flower at the end of the branch.

Once it ripened into a dark color, Kurama seized it and stuffed it into his mouth. He chewed as quickly as possible, making sure to suck every last drop of juice down his throat. A rivulet of juice streamed from the corner of his mouth. It was the same color as the blood flowing down his cheek, and the two liquids mixed so that one could no longer tell which was which.

As the fruit began to take effect, Kurama felt a swell of ki growing within him that healed the cut on his face effortlessly. The thrill of his building power hummed through his body and dizzied him like a wave of arousal. Fog engulfed the room, and the other three fighters paused to get their bearings and look for Kurama, who was enshrouded in mist.

Karasu watched, horrified, as a hand with cruelly pointed nails reached forth from a wall of vapor. Next, a gleaming silver tail emerged. To Karasu, Kurama's transformation was one more step in a rapidly escalating series of events which were chipping away at the dream he had sought so desperately to turn into reality.

"At last," Youko breathed, flexing his powerful hands as the mist dissipated. He exercised his fully restored ki by pointing at the Todakidare branch extended into the room, which almost literally burst into bloom. Buds popped out of the bark and blossomed with such explosive vigor that the petals were blown off with the force, showering the room in fragrant pink clouds.

He turned to Karasu, wearing a smile that showed his teeth. "You said once that you would have liked to fight me again. You have the opportunity to prove yourself to me today… or will you lose again?"

Youko Kurama was stunningly beautiful, especially when he smiled like that, but Karasu had always preferred Shuiichi. Youko posed a serious threat in battle, and Karasu was more at ease with the delicate beauty of Shuiichi, which was his to destroy or cherish as he wished.

Karasu looked Youko full in the eyes, raised his index finger to his temple, and whispered, "_Bang!_" As he did, he thought he felt his heart breaking. Kurama's smile widened.

"Bastard," Hiei hissed, enraged after watching this interaction.

In a flash, he was upon Karasu, who skillfully fended off the blows of his katana with bombs whose ringing explosions made the blade vibrate painfully in Hiei's hands. Hiei held on, grunting every now and then when an explosion grazed his hands. The ferocity of his onslaught pressed Karasu backwards, but Karasu wasn't worried—yet.

Their heated exchange took place with such speed that Hiei had practically forced Karasu out the door before Kurama and Bui had time to react.

"Damn it, Hiei," Kurama muttered as he leapt outside, faintly annoyed with Hiei for engaging Karasu, whom he personally wanted to fight. Bui followed close behind, grimly stripping off his armor as he went. He wasn't going to hold back at all, with Karasu's life at stake.

Shigure tailed the fighters at a leisurely pace, watching the unfolding drama with amusement that bordered on obscene.

"Mukuro-sama will be angry she wasn't here to see this. It's going to be better than any of the matches at the Dark Tournament…" A grin curled the corners of his mouth.

On the shore of the lake, Karasu had surrounded Hiei with an opaque barrier of bombs. It was a ploy to buy some time, for while Hiei was occupied with slashing his way through the bombs, Karasu ripped his mask off and began summoning his powers for a deadly explosion.

"Oh no, you don't," Kurama muttered, starting forward. He was still sensitive to what the removal of Karasu's mask presaged.

"Oh no, _you_ don't," Bui repeated desperately, forming an axe in his hand. He had never wanted to hurt Kurama, but when push came to shove, Karasu was Bui's first priority. Bui knew he needed to attack Kurama before the youko managed to inflict irreversible damage on Karasu. Bui raised the axe and swung at him.

Hearing the air whistle as the axe arced towards him, Kurama nimbly dodged aside. The blade only managed to shave a few silver strands off his tail.

"Does Bui want to play, too?" Kurama asked delightedly as he turned to face him. "Ah, you've even taken off your armor… I might as well oblige."

Losing his head, Bui lunged at him with his outstretched axe. While dodging as effortlessly as before, Kurama muttered a string of seemingly nonsensical words under his breath.

"Allow me to introduce you," he said brightly, as the ground began to rumble beneath them, "to the deadly nightshade of Makai."

An enormous plant with dark leaves and fragrant, purple blossoms shaped like bells burst out of the earth directly in front of them. Bui froze, calculating how best to destroy, or at least, evade the plant. When it failed to sprout writhing, thorny vines or acid-spitting flowers, however, he stared at the shrub with incomprehension. In fact, he was so confused that his axe dropped limply to his side, and he ceased to think of fighting Kurama.

"In Ningenkai," Kurama explained, his voice coming from far away, "belladonna, also known as deadly nightshade, is a plant so poisonous that ingestion of a single leaf can kill an adult. Symptoms of belladonna poisoning include hallucinations, suffocation, and confusion…. European women used extract of belladonna to dilate their pupils to make them more attractive." Kurama's voice had taken on a loving lilt as he talked, lulling Bui into a dreamlike stupefaction.

Kurama stepped close to Bui and peered into his unfocused eyes. "Yes, like that. The Makai belladonna differs from its Ningenkai counterpart in that its poison wafts from the perfume of its flowers. It does not need to be ingested to take effect. I, of course, am immune."

He smiled gently at Bui's blank expression, and turned back to the fight between Hiei and Karasu.

Even Makai belladonna wouldn't be fatal to a youkai like Bui, but Kurama didn't want to kill him. He only wanted to get Bui out of the way so that Karasu could be disposed of.

He was just in time, for Hiei was slashing at the last of the bombs surrounding him with a rather charred katana, and Karasu was giving off the green glow that signified imminent explosion. He leapt up, obviously planning to dive on Hiei.

Kurama drew his lip back in a snarl and pointed at Karasu, ki coursing through his arm. A vine with the girth of an elephant's trunk shot out of the ground towards Karasu, and hit him in the abdomen. The force of the vine knocked Karasu backwards, and he flew towards the lake, blowing up in mid-air. Kurama flinched from the deafening and blinding explosion; when the dancing spots cleared from his vision, he saw that although the vine had pushed Karasu away from him, Hiei had still taken the brunt of the blast.

Kurama ran to him even as he staggered and toppled backward. Meanwhile, Karasu landed in the lake with a splash and began floundering. With a feeling of victory, Kurama remembered Karasu's fear of water.

But as soon as he turned to Hiei, his feelings of triumph turned into worry. Hiei was covered in numerous abrasions and bruises, and his head was bleeding profusely. Seeing the gory mess of his hands, Kurama thought Hiei would never be able to hold a katana again.

"Hiei?"

For a second, it looked as if Hiei wasn't going to respond.

Finally, he gasped, "Hn. Help me up."

He was still fully conscious. Kurama sighed, dizzied with relief. "I thought it would take more than that."

"It took more than that to finish _you_ off, although it was enough to knock you back into your human form at the Dark Tournament," Hiei grunted haltingly. "Now, let me finish him off for you."

"You've made a good start." Kurama grinned. "Let me have the honors."

Hiei frowned as he looked at the lake; Kurama turned to follow his gaze.

Bui had sufficiently recovered from the belladonna to crawl to the lakeside, and he was dragging a spluttering Karasu out of the water. He had a good grip on Karasu's coattails, but his own weakness from the poison made it difficult to pull Karasu.

Kurama scoffed at the touching image. He flicked his wrist, and the vine which had knocked Karasu into the water flew up again and knocked Bui down. With another flick of his wrist, a second vine sprouted from the first, and this one curled around Karasu's heaving chest and hauled him out of the lake, to Hiei's feet. Karasu's pathetic scrabbles in his efforts to resist only worsened his coughing fit.

"Having trouble?" Hiei mocked Karasu, who was on all fours. He thumped Karasu on the back a few times, with enough force to knock Karasu to the ground, and make him cough up an alarming quantity of lake water.

When the coughing passed, Karasu looked up at Hiei with loathing in his eyes. Suddenly, Kurama remembered that even after such a massive explosion, Karasu did not need to recharge in order to create more bombs, and fear rose up his spine like mercury in a thermometer.

"Move!" he yelled, tackling Hiei. Hiei, whose reflexes were usually so fast, saw only a silver and white blur before an explosion filled his field of vision again. This time, it was Kurama who absorbed most of the shock. It was enough to force him back into his human form.

"That's better," Karasu panted. He had regained his feet, and he drew himself up proudly with an effort. But his knees trembled as he spoke, betraying his weakness. "I always hated seeing you in that form."

"That's lucky, because you won't ever see it again," Hiei sneered, tearing off the band covering his Jagan and charging at Karasu.

Hiei could sense weakness in an enemy the way sharks could detect blood spilled miles away. Homing in on Karasu's feebleness, he decided that it was high time he summoned the distinctive black fire which comprised his most powerful attacks.

It was still too risky to unleash Jao Ensatsu Kokuryuha, with Kurama in such close proximity, but Jaō Ensatsu Rengoku Shou would do nicely. His fists blazed with black fire, and Karasu, caught totally off guard, was helpless to fight back.

Kurama was surprised to realize that he pitied Karasu, as he watched the bedraggled crow wilt under Hiei's almost certainly fatal assault. Now that he was no longer in Youko form, he was suddenly very tired. There was no more fun to the fighting now that Karasu was effectively beaten. At this point, he just wanted to leave Karasu and Bui behind forever and go home.

Speaking of Bui… Kurama glanced around and saw him approaching Hiei desperately. He had risen from the lake, and he ran to push Hiei aside—ready, as always, to defend Karasu.

Hiei's bloodlust demanded satisfaction, and he turned his fiery attack upon Bui, prostrating him. Inflamed by the heat of battle, he had an edge over Bui, who was still somewhat dazed by the nightshade. Kurama could see that Hiei would finish Bui easily. Like he had done once before, he rose to the occasion and interceded to save Bui's life.

"No!" he cried. "Hiei!"

The pleading note in his voice was enough to cut through Hiei's frenzy, and he turned to Kurama incredulously, even angrily. Kurama shook his head emphatically, imploring him to spare Bui.

Hiei shot Kurama a dark look. Though he did not open his mouth, Kurama heard him very clearly in his mind: "We'll discuss this later." He moved to finish Karasu off.

"No!" Bui cried.

Kurama also held up his hand in protest. Thick vines sprouted from the ground and swiftly bound Karasu and Bui to each other.

"What's wrong, Kurama?" Hiei seethed. "Stockholm Syndrome?"

He knew Hiei had suffered endless trials coming after him, and it pained him that Hiei might think him ungrateful. He chose his words carefully.

"I can't let you hurt Bui. He's been good to me. And killing Karasu would hurt him more than anything."

"Look how that bastard hurt _you_."

"Most of the damage that he has inflicted isn't visible," Kurama revealed, watching Hiei's rage increase visibly. "But though I may have learned to hate him in an instant… over the course of weeks I learned to pity him. Besides," his voice softened, "my leaving him is by itself a punishment worse than any you can devise."

"He's right," Bui said unexpectedly. "Don't hurt Karasu anymore."

"And why not?" asked Hiei mockingly. "Because you _love_ him?"

Funny that Hiei didn't see the irony in that question, as that had been his motivation in chasing Kurama across Makai.

Bui wasn't flustered. "I'll show you why, if you untie me."

Hiei laughed. "I didn't know you thought I was that stupid. I'd be offended if I took you seriously."

Bui turned to Kurama. "Please, Kurama... convince Yukina's brother to take me seriously."

Hiei choked mid-laugh, and whirled upon Kurama. "How does he know—?"

Kurama shook his head in wordless amazement, staring at Bui. He snapped his fingers, and the vines loosened around Bui, while tightening around Karasu, who was also gazing at Bui in surprise.

Bui picked himself up and began coughing hard. Kurama and Hiei regarded him suspiciously until he spat a round object into his hand. Apparently, it was attached to a cord, for he pulled until the whole length came out of his mouth.

It was a hiruiseki necklace.

"Yes," he said, catching Hiei's shocked expression. "This is the tear gem your mother shed for you, which you lost years ago." He held the gem between his thumb and forefinger, so that its brilliance caught the light. "Promise me that you won't hurt Karasu, and you can have this back without my crushing it to powder."

"How did you get that?" Hiei demanded. "How do you know all of this?"

Bui paused, collecting his thoughts. Before he responded, Kurama thought he knew what part of the answer would be. He remembered that one day, ages ago, Takeo of the Shikaku had asked what Bui's prize from the Dark Tournament was, and Karasu had given a puzzling answer: a necklace.

The pieces of this mystery were falling into place.

"When the committee asked what I desired as my prize, I told them I simply wanted something that would protect Karasu from the consequences of _his_ prize," said Bui, steadily ignoring Karasu's look of shock. "They gave me this necklace and told me your life story. I didn't understand everything then, of course. But I knew you would do almost anything to regain this, what you had lost."

Bui's revelation astonished everyone.

"What made you think there would be consequences to Karasu's pr—his actions?" Kurama asked, refusing to call himself Karasu's prize. Bui's behavior (especially his consent to keep the secret of his returning powers once the seals on his ki had been broken) had always baffled Kurama.

Bui gestured with his arms expressively, as if the answer were so obvious that he could not put it into words.

"What could ever come out of your imposed relationship? Karasu's love for you could only end in his madness or your death—probably both."

Bui pretended he didn't see Karasu recoil at his betrayal as he pronounced those painfully truthful words.

"How—how did the committee know all of that?" Hiei asked in alarm.

Bui furrowed his brow. "I don't know," he admitted.

"I can answer that." Shigure had drawn near once it had become clear that the fighting was over. Everyone stared at him; he had been forgotten in the heat of battle.

"Yes. You have a lot to answer for." Hiei's glare would have cowed lesser youkai.

Shigure smiled pleasantly. "It's a long story, but I think it begins when one of Mukuro-sama's generals found Hiei's hiruiseki by chance on a riverbank. Hiruiseki are rare, even among rulers of Makai. He brought it back with him and presented it to Mukuro-sama as a gift. I thought I recognized it, and I told her the story of its previous owner." Shigure nodded at Hiei, whose face was stony.

"She was greatly interested, and often said that she would like to meet the youkai who would undergo the pain of a Jagan transplant to recover this gem. And as time passed, she suspected it of having healing properties, for wearing it, or even looking at it, produced a curiously soothing effect upon her. She would forget, for a while, her childhood."

Kurama was intrigued. He'd heard nothing about Mukuro's childhood, unhappy or otherwise. The years he'd spent rubbing shoulders with the great crime bosses of Makai, who knew everything, had shed nothing about her past; her origins were obscure to everyone.

"She learned that Hiei would fight at the Dark Tournament around the time that she dismissed one of her high commanders. And so she deployed me to watch Hiei, and offer him a position in her army if I found his performance satisfactory. So I attached myself to the tournament under the guise of a healer."

"What does that have to do with… all of this?" snarled Hiei, waving his arm at Bui and Karasu.

"I'm getting there," Shigure said imperturbably. "I was the one who prepared the poisonous vapors used to knock your team unconscious when you left the hospital after visiting Kurama, and I also prepared the poison gas used to kill your team member—Kuwabara, was it?—after Yusuke lost to Toguro. Hiei, you didn't survive the gas chamber because you held your breath—while making the poison, I was careful to manufacture it to such specifications that it would be deadly only to humans. A youkai of your level would survive it quite easily."

"_Fuck _you," Hiei whispered. All his former guilt about Kuwabara's death had transformed into a concentrated desire to kill both Shigure and his shadowy employer.

"I already knew that Karasu would request Kurama, and though your performance at the Dark Tournament had been slightly disappointing, I still saw potential. I wanted to give you another chance by letting you pursue Kurama. And when Bui made his request for something that would protect Karasu from the consequences of his choice in prizes… well, the committee was initially at a loss. I was able to help them, with Mukuro-sama's permission. I gave them the hiruiseki and told them its back story, which they passed on to Bui."

"So Bui knew all along that Hiei would come after us!" Kurama exclaimed.

"Very noble of you not to say 'I told you so,'" Karasu murmured, looking intently at Bui. He remembered, with a hot feeling of shame, how he had refused to believe Hiei was still alive, despite Bui's conviction.

"Karasu contacted me through an intermediary, offering me a sizable amount of money to make a potion that would erase your memory and render you malleable to Karasu's will. Essentially, you would have become his mindless slave. Karasu didn't know that I was at the Dark Tournament. I agreed to his offer, and in return for my help with Bui's request, the committee agreed to transport me here before either of you arrived. Once I was here, I began making the potion, and I waited.

"Hiei, you've done well. However you may have disappointed me at the Dark Tournament, your success at tracking Karasu and Bui, and at defeating them now has more than made up for your previous, ah, failure."

"If this was all just to test me," Hiei began dangerously, "would you really have poisoned Kurama if I hadn't caught up in time?"

"Of course." Shigure laughed quietly as Hiei's fists clenched. "My mission on Mukuro-sama's behalf would have been a failure then. At least I would have been paid by Karasu."

He looked around at them all.

"So here I am. And here you are. Do you have any more questions?" His condescension, like a teacher's to his students, maddened Kurama.

"Yes, actually," he said slowly. "But I think I'll have to turn to Bui for an answer."

"What is it?" Bui asked.

"Why…" Kurama swallowed hard; this was no time for delicacy. "Why did Karasu try so hard to keep himself from raping me?"

Hiei's eyebrows shot up. From what Kurama had said about most of the damage that Karasu had inflicted upon him being invisible, Hiei had assumed that Karasu did indeed rape Kurama.

"So he didn't, after all?" he couldn't resist blurting out.

Kurama winced at the mixed hope and relief in Hiei's voice. Bui spared him the distress of replying by answering for him.

"He did. Eventually."

Kurama held up a hand and gave Hiei a pained look that said "Not now." It was lucky that Hiei respected him so much, or he would have been unable to control his anger.

Bui went on, answering Kurama's question. "As Nek—I mean, _Shigure_ has explained, Karasu relied on a potion that would produce an amnesiac effect. But Shigure warned us that if you suffered trauma before the potion was administered, your memory of those events would be harder to efface, and you would be more difficult to manage afterwards. After the death of your teammates, the last thing Karasu wanted to do was rape you. Such a traumatic event would have threatened to undermine the potion's effect too much for his comfort."

"So," Kurama said, eyes blazing, "his self-restraint was nothing more than a means to his own selfish ends. And when it caved in, his regret had nothing to do with what you said—all of that about how I had become more than a whore to be used, and how my happiness was integral to his. He was only worried that I would be more difficult to break as a result."

"_No_!" Bui's forceful reaction seemed to surprise even himself. He took a deep breath, and said more calmly, "I think his feelings had begun to change. I honestly believed what I told you."

Bui wanted to apologize to Karasu for exposing him so thoroughly and talking about him as if he weren't there, but he didn't dare look Karasu in the eye after saying that.

He held out the hiruiseki to Hiei. "It's yours, if you can promise that you will leave without harming Karasu further."

"What's to stop him from coming after us?" Hiei demanded.

"I won't," Karasu said through gritted teeth, speaking up for the first time.

"And why should I believe him?" Hiei looked towards Kurama and Bui, refusing to address Karasu.

"I swear for him," said Bui.

"To me, your word is worth as much as his."

"We can trust Bui," Kurama said slowly. "Trust _me_ on that."

Hiei looked at Kurama long and hard before nodding once. He took the hiruiseki from Bui's outstretched hand and slipped it around his neck.

"Don't ever forget me," Karasu said, staring at Kurama. Kurama looked down at him involuntarily. Karasu was straining to smirk, but the immeasurable pain in his eyes gave him away.

"I'll try to," Kurama said quietly.

But would he ever be able to? He was certain that Karasu's shadow would dog his footsteps, that the crow's malevolent presence would lurk in the darkest corners of his mind, that no matter where he looked, those horrible violet eyes would always be staring back at him with irrepressible desire.

"Let's go." Hiei glared at Karasu, who managed a weak leer that was only a shadow of his former self. "You can untie him after we're over the river and out of sight," he said to Bui.

Hiei beckoned to Kurama, who leaned in so Hiei could whisper in his ear.

"Use your sleep-inducing pollen on Karasu. I don't want his eyes following us as we cross the lake."

Kurama nodded briefly and reached into his hair, pulling out a single nightshade flower. He bent down and held it in front of Karasu's face. Karasu realized what he was doing and laughed weakly.

"Goodbye, Kurama," he whispered. "Your beauty was my undoing."

He held Kurama's eyes for a minute with a deeply arresting stare, as if he were memorizing the contours of Kurama's face. Try as he might, Kurama couldn't look away. He understood why Hiei didn't want Karasu's hypnotic gaze fixed upon their backs as they left.

As Karasu's eyes bored into him, sensory images of the past few weeks flashed through Kurama's mind. He remembered the glitter of Karasu's manor, the perfume of the oils Karasu had used on his hair… the press of Karasu's hot, pale skin against his own.

He shuddered, and snapped back to the present.

Karasu's eyes shone with such intensity that Kurama wasn't sure whether it was simply emotion or if there were tears. He hoped for the former.

Apparently satisfied that Kurama's image was permanently engraved in his memory, Karasu inhaled the nightshade's perfume deeply, and his eyes closed. He was looking into Kurama's eyes till the last.

Karasu began to fall backward, bound as he was in his awkward sitting position. Bui stooped to break his fall and eased him into a lying position. As he lay there, his face was whiter than ever, and Kurama fleetingly thought, _I've killed him._

It was truer than he knew.

Hiei caught Kurama's eye and nodded in the direction of the lake.

"Wait. Don't go yet," said Shigure.

They turned to look at him. Both of them kept forgetting him, though he was the figure who had orchestrated a great deal of their suffering.

"What is it?" Hiei said brusquely.

"After what I've seen, Hiei, I can guarantee you a top position in Mukuro-sama's army." He paused. When Hiei did not react, he continued. "Your skills will be put to good use, and you will gain valuable experience. I venture to say that Mukuro-sama will want to train you personally.

"This is an unheard of opportunity. For someone she's never met, you wield tremendous influence over Mukuro-sama. Think of what lengths she's gone to simply to have me here making this offer to you. I can't remember the last time she's wanted to meet someone this badly."

Hiei stared at him.

"You would like her. In fact, I personally think you two would get along very well." Shigure seemed perfectly serious.

Finally, Hiei gave a visible reaction. From the look on his face, he seemed ready to ready to throttle Shigure. He opened his mouth several times before snarling, "Do you really think I would accept your offer after you've manipulated me to no end, forced Kurama to put up with _this_," he gestured eloquently at Karasu, "and fucking _killed_ Yusuke and Kuwabara?" His voice rose almost hysterically at the end. His guilt over their deaths pained Kurama.

"My," said Shigure. "I didn't know you cared so much."

"You and your precious Mukuro-sama can go to hell," Hiei hissed. "And be certain that I won't forget this."

Kurama watched Shigure's face fearfully for any sign of anger or violence, but Shigure only smiled mysteriously.

"I understand; I should have known that this would be a bad time to present the offer to you. Forgive me." Kurama was relieved that Shigure did not seem inclined to press his offer, but he continued. "Know, though, that Mukuro-sama will not give up so easily on you, and that the offer still stands. When you decide to accept it… well, you will be able to find me with your Jagan."

"Don't raise your hopes," Hiei retorted. He turned his back on Shigure. Kurama admired his resolution, but he knew that after investing such time and effort, Shigure and Mukuro would not be discouraged so easily. They would be seeing Shigure again.

But for now, he gave Shigure a cold nod of dismissal, which was received with an ironic smile and a small bow.

"Let's go," Hiei repeated to Kurama, walking briskly past Bui and Karasu towards the raft moored at the bank.

Kurama paused, only briefly, to look back at the damned pair before following Hiei. He still wanted very much to know the true nature of their relationship and the start of their association, but now was not the time to ask. He would never know.

To find an answer, he would have had to cross space and time to reach a dismal house in the far corners of Makai…

_Bui stood in a corner of the cellar, very white and still. The screams upstairs had finally stopped, but he could hear the intruders arguing amongst themselves._

"_Get out of the way, brat!"_

_There were scuffling noises, as if the furious youkai were being restrained from beating the object of his ire._

_Another voice panted, "You don't want to hurt Karasu . . . Hiroshi-sama favors him. He sees a lot of potential."_

"_Potential?" The other spat on the ground loudly. "Ever since he came, he's been nothing but a burden to the Shikaku!"_

"_That's not true," the other said evenly. "Perhaps you're simply jealous of his growing ability. Quest Class youkai _are_ rare."_

_Over the angry youkai's spluttering, a third, younger voice said coolly, "I'm going downstairs to look around."_

_Bui guessed this might be the Karasu in question. He slid his hatchet out of his belt and gripped it tightly._

_A masked youkai preceded only by the lightest of footsteps descended into the cellar. Bui raised his axe, preparing to embed it in the stranger's skull._

_Instantly, the axe was blown out of his hand with a small explosion that left burns and deep scratches on his palm. Small explosions were the only ones Karasu was capable of at that point in his training._

_Bui hissed, looking around frantically for another weapon._

_The youkai in black approached him, his long hair swinging as he walked._

"_Why, you're just a child." He sounded amused and surprised._

_Bui scowled up at him. From what he'd overheard, this Karasu wasn't much more, despite his superior height._

_Karasu continued to look down in amusement at him. Panicking, but determined not to submit passively to whatever Karasu had in mind for him, Bui launched himself at the taller youkai. _

_Karasu toppled over, Bui straddling him and punching him hard in the gut. Karasu blew a hole into Bui's side with the mysterious power that he possessed, causing Bui to fall over, his left hip bleeding profusely. Still, Bui didn't give up, now alternating violent blows and vicious bites in his attack on Karasu._

_Bui's tremendous muscular strength was taking its toll on Karasu. Blood flecked the crow youkai's lips as he coughed in agony. He was certain that Bui would leave black bruises that wouldn't fade for weeks. He grinned, however, and sent a pair of small bombs to Bui's fists. They blew up, shattering Bui's fingernails and ripping the skin off his knuckles._

_Bui grunted with the pain, tears coming involuntarily to his eyes. Karasu laughed with sadistic delight, moving to straddle him. He leaned down close to Bui's face and asked, "Is your father one of those dead bodies upstairs?"_

"_My father's been dead for years," Bui panted. "They're the gang who took me in afterwards. Go ahead… kill me!"_

_Even then, he was already uttering the fateful line he would later use on Toguro and Hiei. Like them, however, Karasu was not going to be taken in._

"_What's your name?"_

_A glare. Karasu waited patiently until he muttered, "Bui."_

"_Bui," Karasu repeated pensively. "You know, our circumstances are very similar. Bui."_

_Bui continued to glower at him. Karasu got off of him and stood up. Bui also righted himself slowly, grimacing at the blood spattered over the floor and walls. Karasu was impressed by his hardiness._

"_I am an apprentice to the Shikaku, guild of assassins. They took me in years ago, when I had nowhere else to go." He paused. "My name is Karasu."_

_He turned to leave, but looked back over his shoulder when Bui did not follow._

"_Aren't you coming?" His lips quirked under his mask, unseen. "Bui."_

This was the meeting that cemented a lifelong companionship.

Farther up on the bank, Karasu groaned as he stirred. Drying tear tracks glistened on his face.

"Coming," Bui said, walking away from the lake. He stopped at Karasu's side, gazing down with genuine concern that was far more valuable to Karasu than any kitsune's beauty. If only the crow knew that. Well. He might learn in time.

"I'm here. Karasu."

--

Kurama and Hiei mounted the raft, which drifted towards the other shore almost dreamily. The mists over the lake sealed Shigure's cottage from view.

Kurama wanted to collapse into Hiei's arms but felt it would be unseemly, so he sat up cross-legged, keeping his back proudly straight.

Hiei seemed to see past this, for he asked seriously, "How do you feel?"

A faint smile came to Kurama's lips. He felt like he ought to say something like "exhilarated" or "relieved," as the truth would sound ungrateful.

In the end, however, he said honestly, "Tired."

"Sleep," Hiei told him gruffly. "I can carry you back to your home in Ningenkai if necessary."

Kurama's smile widened at the image of his mother opening the door to find Hiei cradling him in his arms. It provided a wonderful contrast to his previous experiences of being slung over Bui's shoulder like a sack of potatoes.

He boldly leaned against Hiei and closed his eyes, resting his head on the Jaganshi's shoulder. Hiei looked down in wonder at the serene expression on his pinched face, and shifted so that Kurama might doze in a more comfortable position.

As he continued to gaze at Kurama, he thrilled with the knowledge that no matter how he had failed his other teammates, he had at last succeeded in saving one of them, the one dearest to him. He brushed Kurama's bangs out of his eyes, his fingers sweeping gently across Kurama's forehead as if in benediction.

The raft carried them across the lake, and afterwards Hiei picked Kurama up and carried him clear of Karasu and his bottomless lust masquerading as love, away from Shigure and his schemes, and beyond the face of fear.

--

A/N: This is not quite the end, as this chapter will be followed by an epilogue. Then the story will be finished.

Also, Jazi drew not one, but _three_ amazing pieces of fan art for this fic! Here's one: deviation/31987307/ and here's another: deviation/32004664/

Shower her with praise. :D


	12. Epilogue

12. Epilogue

--

"Hiei," Kurama said quietly.

"Hn," Hiei grunted in acknowledgement. He looked sidelong at Kurama.

After safely crossing the lake and re-entering Ningenkai, Kurama had woken up in Hiei's arms. Hiei had torn up his cloak to use the strips of fabric as bandages, so that he could carry Kurama even though his hands were still bleeding. Despite the comfort of traveling in the cradle of Hiei's arms, Kurama had insisted on walking himself, out of concern for Hiei's injuries. Then, for about twenty minutes on the road to Kurama's house, they traveled in companionable silence.

Kurama's mind had been so full that he hadn't known what to say first, and he was weighed down by exhaustion despite his nap during their trip across Makai. For Hiei's part, fatigue only increased his usual taciturnity, and he felt that anything he might have to say would pale in comparison to whatever Kurama chose to share—which he was eager to hear. At the same time, he would not badger Kurama with questions or conversation so soon after what had passed.

Now, however, Kurama seemed to want—and even need—to talk.

"Thank you for being so tireless in your efforts to find me. I heard rumors of what you had to do to track us down, and I'm sure there is much more that I don't know about."

Kurama was obliquely referring to the deaths of those who had stood in Hiei's way. While he didn't quite mourn Takeo and Takara, or the others, they had been (for the most part) innocent bystanders. He could not shake off the thought that they needn't have died if Karasu had not entangled them in his wretched attempts to manifest an absurd fantasy.

"I'm guessing that you suffered more than I did, helpless though I was in Karasu's clutches."

Kurama's self-deprecating grin evinced a miraculous capacity for recovery. His ability to joke about a predicament which had almost cost him his memory and his free will, only two hours after escaping, inspired tremendous hope in Hiei—as much as had the sight of his giant strawberries, the first sign of Kurama's returning ki.

"Don't argue," Kurama said in a mock-stern voice, holding his hand up when Hiei opened his mouth.

Hiei remembered his own helplessness in the face of Yusuke and Kuwabara's murders, and wondered if the horror of that experience could really be compared to being raped by Karasu. Still, he would not dispute it with Kurama.

"I won't ever forget your perseverance or your gallantry."

A smile ghosted over Kurama's lips again, and Hiei recalled bitterly how he had vowed to never let Kurama forget that he'd had to "rescue him like a knight storming the locked tower of some feckless princess."

The smile rapidly fading, Kurama continued, "I'm sorry that I interfered so much back there, on Bui's behalf. I didn't mean to get in your way, when you'd come so far…"

"No," Hiei said quickly. "You said Bui had been good to you. I'm sure that—that is, if you ever feel like it—I'd like to know what he did for you."

Kurama recognized Hiei's implicit request for the details of his captivity, and he didn't mind; he was equally keen on hearing Hiei's side to the story. Hiei's stumbling speech was a sound foreign to his ears, and he correctly interpreted his uncharacteristic faltering as delicacy and restraint.

To show Hiei that he didn't need to be treated like glass, that Karasu hadn't broken him, he said without hesitating, "You'll hear everything that happened to me after the Dark Tournament when we talk to the girls; we should meet them tomorrow. And if I choose to withhold anything from them—I'll tell you the rest in private."

This proof of confidence honored Hiei more than he could say, and he blustered loudly, "I just wanted to know if I was wrong to leave them alive. If you tell me something that proves my leniency was a mistake, I'll go back and finish them off!"

Kurama laughed softly, easily seeing through Hiei's false bravado to the embarrassment that he was trying to cover. "No. It's over. This whole incident… is something that I'd like to leave behind as soon as possible."

A silence fell as they continued walking, and Hiei hated to break it to contradict him, though he knew that Kurama's wish would be impossible to fulfill until they took care of unfinished business. He certainly didn't want to dwell on the past few weeks obsessively, especially for Kurama's sake, but they couldn't forget.

"It's not done yet."

"What do you mean?"

"We need to track down Toguro and avenge Yusuke and Kuwabara."

Kurama inhaled sharply. Hiei held his own breath, watching Kurama closely.

"Yes," Kurama agreed heavily. "I didn't mean to forget them," he murmured, almost to himself.

Hiei winced. Guilt was a debilitating emotion, and he had enough for the both of them without Kurama wallowing in his own cesspool of it as well.

"Yusuke came to me in my dreams," said Kurama. "To tell me you were coming."

"Kuwabara came to me." Hiei scowled, not without affection. "Bastard mocked me about Yukina and—and other things," he finished lamely.

Kurama grinned slightly, shaking off the melancholy that guilt had thrown over him. The discovery that Kuwabara had teased Hiei over the same thing that Yusuke had him lightened Kurama's heart considerably.

"Well, Yusuke wasn't the most comforting dream visitor either—although I'm willing to concede that his taunts about us probably weren't as cutting as Kuwabara's. And some of what Yusuke said _was_ reassuring."

Hiei reddened faintly at the word "us" as he came to the same revelation Kurama had just arrived at. Kurama tried to keep his grin from growing wider.

"At any rate, you're right. Toguro—and perhaps Mukuro and Shigure also—they all have a bit of well-deserved revenge coming to them. And we should talk to Koenma about the possibility of arranging resurrections for Yusuke and Kuwabara." Kurama gave a little sigh, out of tiredness rather than despair, and rubbed his eyes.

Hiei was about to say that he had incinerated Kuwabara's body, and Yusuke's corpse was equally unlikely to be fit to house his soul again. But he thought better of it. They would be able to find a way around this obstacle, he was sure. Better not to make Kurama worry unnecessarily.

"We can speak of this later," he urged, simultaneously worried for Kurama's health and pleased by his can-do attitude. "You're tired." _And so am I,_ he added mentally. "I'll go contact Yukina, Keiko, and the other girls after we get to your house."

Kurama nodded to show that he had heard. A part of him was still fixed on what Yusuke and Kuwabara had said to him and Hiei in their dreams. He decided that now was as good a time as any to speak to him directly. He stopped walking, and turned to face Hiei.

"Hiei, before we get there..."

Hiei halted as well, and looked up at him.

"Yes?"

Night was falling, and the setting sun's rays cast his face into a chiaroscuro of light and shadow that was difficult to read. But Kurama thought he could see hopeful anticipation in Hiei's eyes, and he prayed that his own desire wasn't misleading him.

"Yes" instead of "hn" was reassuring, at any rate.

"I don't know exactly what Kuwabara told you," Kurama started, "but if it was along the same lines as what Yusuke said to me—"

Hiei took a deep breath. _This was it_. He leaned close and raised his finger to Kurama's lips in a shushing gesture.

"Don't disillusion me. I ate up every word that fool said and he's probably laughing at me right now."

A brilliant, lopsided smile broke out across Kurama's face, one which Hiei matched after what Kurama said next:

"No… every word of it was true."

His heart swelling, Kurama wrapped his hands around Hiei's and drew it away from his mouth. He clasped it in midair for a second, then brought it back to his lips to brush the lightest of kisses over Hiei's knuckles.

"Thank you," he said for the second time that evening. What he was thanking Hiei for, he wasn't quite sure. It might have been simply for the reciprocation of his feelings, or for the entire precious gift of his presence in Kurama's life.

Hiei didn't offer a response; he was too busy trying to smother his wild elation, which was threatening to express itself in a very unseemly fashion for someone with the self-control that he'd cultivated.

But when they reached Kurama's house, in the moment between Kurama ringing the bell and Shiori opening the door, Hiei pulled Kurama down and gave him his "you're welcome" on the lips. They shared a brief but significant parting smile, and Hiei darted away to find the girls, but not without first whispering his assurance that he would be back that night to check on Kurama.

When Shiori found her son on the doorstep, finally back from his "biotechnology seminar," she thought him not quite the same boy who had left several weeks ago. Her maternal instincts, which had long before told her that Shuiichi was _different_ in a way she didn't understand detected the difference now emanating from him in tidal waves. He looked a little pale and rattled, as if he somehow was not whole at the moment, but the way he was smiling indicated that he would be soon. As she had always done, Shiori ignored his difference and embraced him tightly, telling him how happy she was now that he had come home.

Kurama was absolutely sincere in saying "I'm happy to be back, Mother," when he returned the hug with equal feeling. Shiori was the one person he would have wanted to see immediately after Hiei, and the affections of two of the people he loved most were the most potent remedies for the ills he had suffered, whether he knew it or not.

Kurama couldn't be blamed if, while Shiori continued to cluck over him, his thoughts wandered once or twice to the prospect of seeing Hiei again that night. After all, Shiori did not know what Kurama had undergone. Hiei was the only one who could really understand his current frame of mind, and whom Kurama could discuss his experiences with—not that he wanted to, right now. Their stories could wait; he anticipated happier conversation tonight.

Kurama might not ever truly forget Karasu, but for the time being, Shiori and Hiei had effectively wiped the crow from his mind. At the same time, a world away, Bui was distracting Karasu from his pain by single-handedly nursing him with a tender instinct like a mother's, and protecting him with an ardent jealousy very like a lover's: what Shiori and Hiei combined were doing for Kurama.

"Bui," Karasu murmured weakly as the other mopped up what was left of his wounds. Shigure had agreed to heal the worst of Karasu's injuries before leaving to report to Mukuro, and after a night's rest, Karasu would be fit to travel back to his primary house (the only one Kurama had seen). But his physical pain, even at its height, had been nothing to his inner turmoil.

"Yes?" replied Bui, intently wiping dried blood from Karasu's cheek with a wet cloth. He wished that Karasu wouldn't talk; he was only going to get worked up and tire himself even more. If he wanted to talk, though, let him: Bui could not deny Karasu anything when he was in this condition.

"I made a series of spectacularly bad decisions where Kurama was concerned. I wasn't thinking clearly." Karasu touched Bui's wrist lightly. "And I did this without any thought for you, while you… thought of everything."

Karasu never said sorry or expressed gratitude directly, but that little speech served as both an apology and a thank you. Bui required nothing more. He forgave Karasu instantly, and saw no reason to discuss Kurama any further. Though Bui would always tread sensitively around this topic when it resurfaced (and he was sure it would: Karasu had invested too much into the damned kitsune to ever fully recover) the entire fiasco was a closed chapter as far as he was concerned. His wonderfully practical mind was already looking ahead. He realized that work would be the best healer for Karasu's ills.

"You needn't think of me. Think of the Shikaku. We may have missed a crucial part of the fighting for the head position, but I am confident that you can depose whoever is currently in power with ease. You must have been Hiroshi-sama's first choice of a successor, but he was probably forced to choose Takeo when we were pressed into Toguro's service. Now, though… you are free to take what is rightfully yours and restore order." He gently removed his arm from Karasu's touch, and wrung out the blood-stained cloth over a bowl of water.

Karasu smiled wanly. He hadn't thought of the Shikaku in such a long time. Another one of the many sacrifices he had futilely made for Kurama.

"I know I can accomplish all of that with you at my side. I'm not worried."

Bui bowed his head. A moment of silence and perfect understanding hung between them.

Back in Ningenkai, Kurama smiled brilliantly at his mother as they finished dinner together. She had asked him interested questions about the purported seminar, and he had replied with elaborate lies, but their actual conversation was clearly less important to either of them than the simple joy of being in each other's presence again.

"I won't keep you up any longer," Shiori said. "You must be tired, Shuiichi. Wash up and go to bed."

"I would like to rest," Kurama admitted. He rose and kissed his mother on the cheek. "Goodnight, Mother. I'll see you tomorrow."

_Of course you will, you aren't going anywhere,_ she thought. And she wanted to deny him permission to go on any more "biotech seminars" which were mysteriously extended and never allowed her to contact Shuiichi. She may not have known how close she had come to losing her son forever, but a mother's instinct always senses such dangers. Still, she knew, with a pang in her heart, that she would not say no the next time Shuiichi came to her speaking of a field trip. Nevertheless, no matter what other strange camps or seminars arose in the future, she was content that this time, he had come home safe.

Kurama went upstairs, and sensed a familiar ki waiting for him in his room. Smiling, he opened the door.

"Hello, Hiei."

"Hn." Hiei scrutinized him, satisfied that Shiori had done a world of good for Kurama in a relatively short time. He returned Kurama's smile from his seat on the windowsill. Kurama took a seat on the bed.

They talked about Hiei's meeting with the girls at first, but they soon digressed onto other topics—the happier conversation that Kurama had anticipated. He hadn't expected a goodnight kiss, though. The only thing that made him happier than the kiss itself was the fact that the horrid goodnight routines of the past few weeks had not turned him off the act of kissing.

Somewhere inside Kurama's mind, Youko laughed. _You are resilient, my little human half. _

_We're going be just fine._

--

For the first time, Karasu and Kurama were perfectly aligned in spirit. Both were vulnerable and battered, and neither would ever forget the other. But at the moment, they were enjoying a temporary exorcism of each other's ghost, thanks to their respective caretakers.

And for now—no matter how short the respite—they were content.

--

A/N: Whew! This is the longest fic that I've ever written, and it's dedicated to **Funara**, whose lovely story **Opium Dream** is dedicated in turn to me.

Certain chapter titles were nicked from T.S. Eliot's "The Hollow Men." The story title itself was taken from one of my favorite poems, reproduced below in its entirety.

"_Blessing the Boats" by Lucille Clifton_

_(at St. Mary's)_

_may the tide  
that is entering even now  
the lip of our understanding  
carry you out  
beyond the face of fear  
may you kiss  
the wind then turn from it  
certain that it will  
love your back may you  
open your eyes to water  
water waving forever  
and may you in your innocence  
sail through this to that_

Thanks to everyone who read and reviewed! Even if I haven't made many KxK converts, I hope that at least some of you see Bui in a new light. He is the character that I admire the most in the entire story.

I didn't quite realize how much this ending set up for a sequel until after I wrote it, but I've already got plenty of ideas. Mukuro and Toguro must be taken care of, as do the sadly neglected Yusuke and Kuwabara, and I'd like to explore Karasu and Bui's return to the Shikaku. Unfortunately, I don't have enough time right now to write a sequel. But that doesn't mean I won't eventually, especially as I'm having a hard time letting this story go. I'd dearly love to write Karasu again.

Till next time!


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